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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/afterdeathordiseOOrand 



AFTER DEATH : 



OR, 



DISEMBODIED MAI 



LOCATION, TOPOGRAPHY, AND SCENERY OF THE SUPERNAL UNIVERSE; 

ITS INHABITANTS, THEIR CUSTOMS, HABITS, MODES OF 

EXISTENCE; SEX AFTER DEATH; MARRIAGE IN THE 

WORLD OF SOULS; THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY 

GHOST, ITS FEARFUL PENALTIES, ETC. 

BY THE AUTHOR OF 

PRE-ADAMITE MAN. 




c BOSTON, MASS: 

PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR 

18.6 8. 



/ 



AFTER DEATH; 



OB, 



DISEMBODIED MAN 



THE WORLD OF SPIRITS; ITS LOCATION, EXTENT, APPEARANCE; 

THE ROUTE THITHER; INHABITANTS; CUSTOMS; SOCIETIES: 

ALSO SEX AND ITS USES THERE, ETC., ETC., WITH 

MUCH MATTER PERTINENT TO THE 

QUESTION OF HUMAN 

IMMORTALITY. 



BEING THE SEQUEL TO 

"DEALINGS WITH THE DEAD." 

BY THE AUTHOR OF ' PRE-AD AMITE MAN.' 

■ 

SECOND EDITION, REVISED, CORRECTED, AND ENLARGED. 



What I was is passed by; 
What I am away doth fly; 
What I shall be none do see, 
Yet in that my beauties be. 

Song of the Soul. 




/% BOSTON, MASS.: 

PRINTED FOR, AND SOLD EXCLUSIVELY BY, THE AUTHOR. 

1868. 



fa 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by 

Paschal Beverly Randolph, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 



r 



5k 



BOOKwell & Rollins, Printers and Stekeotypebs, 
122 Washington Street, Boston. 



PREFACE. 



The first edition of this work appeared in a "Western city 
in November, 1866. The author had no opportunity to correct 
the proof-sheets, which were never sent to him ; and, in con- 
sequence, the most vital mistakes occurred in printing. The 
demand for the work was, however, so great, that, at the solic- 
itation of many correspondents, the author resolved to re-write, 
revise, correct, greatly enlarge, and supervise the printing 
thereof. This has now been done, "and the work, in proper 
shape, is herewith presented for the judgment and, I hope, 
profitable acceptance of the thinking portion of mankind. 

I dedicate this book to my friends in need, therefore friends 
indeed, — S. B. Watkous, of Fort Union, New Mexico, and F. 
B. Dowc, of Davenport, Iowa. 

PASCHAL BEVERLY RANDOLPH. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE I. 



PAGE 



Why? Is there any God? — Are Souls created here? — Certain very Important 

Questions 9 



CHAPTEE II. 

Why is Man Immortal ? — The Reply — Singular Proofs — Invisible People — 
" Religion" the Liver — What is God? — The Answer — The Exact Locality 
of Hell — White-Blooded People of the Future — An Astounding Prophecy 25 



CHAPTEE III. 

The Rationale of going up — Matter's Immateriality — About the first Human 
Couple — Extent of the Sky — The Origin of Negroes and other Races not 
Identical — The Grand Secret of the Ages Revealed ...... 41 



CHAPTEE IV. 

Analysis of a Human Spirit and Soul — Why it is Proof against Death — Singular 
Disclosures about the Parts and Organs of a Spirit — The Sex Question 
settled — Coquettes and Dandies in the other Life — Spirits' Dress and 
Clothing — The Fashions among Them — Do we carry Deformities with us 
there ? — What they do in Spirit Land — The Soul, and where its Seat is in 
the Body — Idiots, Thieves, " Stillborns," Cyprians, Maniacs, Insane, Mur- 
derers, Ministers, Suicides, when in the Spirit World — Monstrosities — Why 
Human Beings resemble Beasts — A Curious Revelation — Some Stillborns 
Immortal — Others not — Why ? — " Justification " of Suicide — Consequences 

of Suicide — Harlots even there — Judgment-Day 51 

V 



VI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 



PAGE 



Are Animals Immortal ? — The Absorption-into-God Question Settled — Phan- 
tomosophy — A Wonderful Spirit Power — Its Rationale — Rationale of 
Delirium Tremens — A Singular Fact — How Thoughts are Read — The 
Explanation of Memory — A New Revelation — Genius — A New Faculty — 
Animals of the Spiritual World 70 



CHAPTER VI. 

Very Startling Questions and their Answers — Relationship in Heaven — The 
Affinity Question Settled — Is Death Painful ? — Death by Hanging and 
Drowning — The Sensations thereof — Effect of Bad Marriages — Fate of 
Duellists, Soldiers, Executioners — Those who Die of Fright or Horror — 
Drunkards — Obsessions — The Fate of Genius, and its Origin — Crime-En- 
gendering Dangers — Haunted People and Houses — A Curious Cause of 
Mental Suffering — Music over there — Why do People marry over there ? — 
Reply 78 



CHAPTER VII. 

Location, Direction, Distance, Formation, and Substance of the Spirit Land — 
A New Planet near the Sun — The Spirit Worlds Visible to the Naked Eye — 
The Throne of God, its Nature, Bulk, and Locality — Location of the Final 
Home of Spirits — The Origin of the first Human Soul — Uncreated Souls — 
The Rain of World-Souls and Soul-Seeds — Location of the Seven Grand 
Spheres or Zones — Length of an Eternity — Our Spirit World Visible on 
Clear Nights — Its Depth and Dimensions — Distance and Substance of the 
Spiritual World — How we go to and from there — Plants and Animals of 
Spirit Land — Scenery about the Spiritual Sun — Boreal and Austral Suns 
now forming at the Poles — Vampires — Weight of a Spirit .... 85 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Spiritual Rivers — How we get to Spirit Land — Sects in Heaven — Fairy 
People — The Complexion Question in Spirit Life — The Languages used in 
Spirit Land — Age in Spirit Life — The Question of Relationship in Spirit 
Life — Our Occupations there — Our Names in Heaven — Number of People 
in Spirit Life — Good Peter Cooper, the Millionnaire — Substance, Food, 
Drink, Curious — Very — "Free Love" — Singular 106 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Heaven of Savages — First Grand Division of the Spirit Land — Music up 
there, and how made — Houses, Towns, Cities, in the Upper World — How 
Built, and of what Material — Breath up There — The Female Thermometer 
— Curious, but True — A Wonderful Spiritual Fact — Jewels there — Schools 
in Heaven 118 



CONTENTS. VII 



CHAPTEK X. 



PAGE 



The Question of Sex and Passion in Spirit Life — An Astounding Disclosure 
Thereanent — Are Children Born in the Upper Land ? — New and Strange 
Uses for the Human Organs when we are Dead — The Philosophy of Con- 
tact — Curious — Still more so — Loves of the Angels . . . , • 132 



CHAPTER XI. 

Certain Organic Functions in the Spirit World — Eating, etc., there — Analysis 
of a Spirit — Its Bones, Organs, etc. — The Actual Existence of the Trees 
of Life and Knowledge — Heaven as seen May 22, 1866 — Institutions, 
Employments, and Pleasures of the Upper Land — Description of the People 
there dead 10,000 years ago 141 



CHAPTER XII. 

Extent of the Universe — Description of a Heaven — Curious Power of a Spirit's 
Eye — Animals in Spirit Land — A Palace there — Lectures — Studies in 
Heaven — Loveometers and Soul-Measures — Contents of a Museum there — 
Marriage up there — Love also — Duration of an " Eternal Affinity " . . 149 



CHAPTER XIII. 

; Why "Eternal Affinity" is not true — Effect of a Bad Marriage on the Victim, 
after Death — How Souls are Incarnated — Why Souls Differ — The Second 
Grand Division of the Spirit Land — Seas, Ports, Vessels, Sailors, in Spirit 
Land — Hunting Scenes there — The Presbyterian Heaven .... 159 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Sectarian Heaven, and the Strange Discussions there — The Mahometan Heaven 
— The Third Grand Division of Spirit Land — Sanitoria — Hospitals for the 
Sick, and who they are — The Wonderful Herb, Nommoc-Esnes — Its Uses — 
The Fourth Grand Division of Spirit Land — The " Spheres " — The Heaven 
of Half-Men — Fifth Division 174 



CHAPTER XV. 

Origin of the Spirit World — The first two Spirits — The Terrific Impending 
Danger of the Destruction of this Earth — A Fearful and Actually Exist- 
ing Possibility — An Approaching Change in the Earth's Axis — A New 
Planet near the Sun — A New Ring about being thrown off from it, and 
the Formation of other Planets by Cometic Condensation — Uprising of 
a New Continent — Destruction of the Asteroids — Gold Hills — How the 
First Spirits discovered the Spiritual Land and went to it — The Rev. 
Charles Hall's Arrival in Spirit Land — His Surprise — The Earth a 
Living Organism 183 



VHI CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

PAGE 

The Sixth Grand Division of Spirit Land — Things Taught there — The Origin of 
all Matter — The Lost Pleiad Pound — A Lightless Sun — The Law of Period- 
icity — Soul-storms — Credo — A New Revelation of a most astounding Char- 
acter — The Seventh Grand Division of Morning Land — Its Superlative 
Glories — Will Man lose his Identity in the Godhead ? — A Mournful, yet 
Glorious Pact — A Home for all, all breaking, bleeding Hearts, all 'sorrow- 
laden Souls — A new Revelation concerning Sleep — Why a Spirit cannot be 
Dismembered — Curious — The Coming Man — Miscegenation — Soul's Flight 
to the Solar Zone and Second Girdle . 192 



CHAPTER XVn. 

A Philosophical Error corrected — Conclusion ........ 207 

APPENDIX. 

Part II. A. — Discoveries — The Grand Secret of Life 227 

Part II. B. — New Discoveries — Things Worth Knowing ..... 245 

Part II. C. — New Discoveries — Things Worth Knowing 257 



CHAPTER I. 

WHY? IS THERE ANY GOD? — ARE SOULS CREATED HERE? — CERTAIN VERY IMPOR- 
TANT QUESTIONS. 

I am moved to write concerning the natural, spiritual, and 
celestial universes as they have never been written of before. 
Before doing so, I am led to exclaim : Thank God for death ! and 
thank him for the life beyond the gloomy sea ! Because there 
is rest for the weary, — for even tired me ! If the agony protracted 
called life, that most of us who think, and, thinking, feel, en- 
dure on earth, was all, then, indeed, existence were an awful 
tragedy, and terrible beyond all bearing, the universe a grave- 
yard, and the ruling God a most bitter and malignant fiend. But 
it is not all; it — the life on the lower globe — is but the ABC 
of human existence ; and this fact — however it may, by some, be 
disputed — is not merely to the few learned a simple logical pos- 
tulate, — to them an axiomatical truth, — but it is one capable of 
absolute and unequivocal demonstration, in a thousand ways, to 
all mankind ; for it is above all others, the one great thing in 
which all mankind are deeply interested. Hence, whatever, or 
whoever, throws light thereon, does a deed, that of necessity 
endears him and his labor to the world of human beings, who yet 
grope and grovel through the dark and glimmer, toward the great 
unknown Beyond. 

Compared to this question of human continuance, after the grim 
spectre's visit, all other questions and matters are trivial ; and 
albeit the rich man laughs at the poor philosopher, who demon- 
strates immortality, yet the day comes when he would gladly 
give all his wealth for one little ray of the seer's certain knowl- 
edge. 

Let me ask : What are all the honors earth can heap upon us ? 
What all the glittering triumphs human genius can win ? What 
all the brilliant homage a myriad potentates might accord ? What 
2 9 



10 AFTER DEATH ; 

are all gleaming riches, troublesome joys, and half-sided loves of 
earth — a taste — then death — actually worth to us, if they are 
to be, as they mainly are, bought with groans, tears, and heart- 
wrung agonies, and, after a brief enjoyment, to be lost — forever? 
What matters this splendid Morning of Intellect, if the inevitable 
Night brings us but eternal Sleep ? 

It is proposed in this book, not only to reply to all these, and 
very many more similar questions, but to break ground in several 
new directions ; and, in presenting some of what will be regarded 
its extraordinary statements to the people, no one can be more 
alive to the consequences than the writer hereof. 

Suffice it to say that the work has been gestating in my soul for 
long years. Independent of what is popularly known as spiritual- 
ism, I have been a seer from childhood, the record of which seer- 
ship has been long before the world. My mother was a seer 
before me, and I have been a clairvoyant by spontaneity since my 
fourth year ; and that power has been quickened by mesmeric in- 
duction all along the bitter years, and intensified since the exciting 
advent of the modern Theargia. Experiences, visions, supernal 
intercourse, in all four quarters of the globe ; and hundreds of 
intromissions into the worlds of disbodied, unearthed peoples ; 
and mental notes, then, thus and there taken, and subsequently 
committed to paper, are the authorities for what hereinafter follows. 
The intent to present portions of what I had thus learned to the 
world was resolved on four years ago, two of which were spent in 
Louisiana, and places thereaway, where, for weeks together, I was 
obliged to sleep with pistols in my bed, because the assassins 
were abroad and red-handed Murder skulked and hovered round 
my door. Daily threats of summary strangling seasoned many 
of my meals, while writing out the first edition of this revelation, 
the offence being that, under the orders of my Country's officers, 
I taught some thousands of "negroes" — black and white too, — 
the sublime arts of reading and penmanship. And yet the work 
laid out was accomplished then, — finished now. I bequeath it to 
the ages ; dedicate it to all struggling souls, — among whom are a 
few, — very few, who really knew, and hence loved me. God 
bless them all ! Thus much prefatorial, except to add that the 
entire work has been wholly revised, corrected, and portions re- 
written. Much entirely new matter has been added. It stands 



OK, DISBODIED MAN. 11 

my darling, and master-piece. I give it to the world, which 
world will, perhaps, appreciate and value it, when I am dead, — 
and my spirit, freed from the tempest of the passions, which always 
enveloped me, shall be basking on the green, flowery banks of 
Aidenn, in the realm of soals, just beyond the surging seas of 
life, — if not before. Till then I can wait. 

Now when we gaze about us, with all our senses in health and 
active play, and realize how very small we are, how insignificant, 
in comparison with the enormous vastitude above, beneath, about, 
and beyond us ; if we are really true men ; if our souls — our bet- 
ter part — be not subservient to mere sense, mere surface; if 
we are free, not in the restricted, but the larger sense, — untainted 
by or with the filth and bitterness of the past ; if we shall have 
bursted our chrysalis shell, and tasted a few drops of the honeyed nec- 
tar of the true soul-life, the upper existence, here below, — we can- 
not help believing that all we see, feel, and know to be around and 
above us, is, after all, something more than the result of mere acci- 
dent or fortuitous chance. He who can believe the monstrous ne- 
gation implied, is not a man, is, in fact, as great a monstrosity as 
the cold negation he dares to affirm. On the contrary, we must 
and do realize, if we think at all, that we live in the midst of one 
tremendous, stupendous miracle, and that we are ourselves, singly 
and combined, another no less wondrous miracle, — none the less 
mysterious, awful and sublime, both by reason of our comparative 
tininess, and the magnificent possibilities wrapped up within us, 
and which we instinctively feel capable of achieving, — openly dem- 
onstrating in the face of heaven, earth, and the glorious God, 
whom we cannot help acknowledging and adoring. True, in mo- 
ments of intellectual pride, or vanity, the result of bad begetting 
and worse culture, we may — some fools of us — scout, and 
laugh " ha, ha," at the idea of a central, creating, self-existent, and 
all-sustaining Power ; and we may call God an " Idea," laugh at 
his supposed " Personality," ridicule all theology, snap our fingers 
at Brahma, Siva, Vishnu, Buddha, Mahommed, the Nazarene, and 
all the other countless avatars and God-incarnations, so thought, 
called, and believed, by myriads of our human earth-born race, and 
in some sense be partly, if not wholly, justified in so doing. And 
yet again we cannot help feeling that although these accounts are 
man's feeble attempts to reach solutions of the great mystery 



12 AFTER DEATH; 

around us, yet, and still there must be a substratum somewhere ; 
and then we learn to respect these beliefs even if we refuse to adopt 
them ; no longer sneer at Christ or Brahma, but try to reach a new 
road to the great goal we long to gain. 

The fact is there are no atheists at heart. All men believe in God 
to a greater or less extent ; and while no two persons exactly agree, 
yet few will, if sane, deny in toto the existence of a great Over- 
soul, — a super-ruling power, called, variously God, Aum, Brahm, 
Allah, Jehovah, or Creator ; for the evidences are so numerous 
and palpable that few can gainsay them. While most all men ad- 
mit that God exists, there are various opinions and much hostility 
respecting Jesus Christ, — many affirming and more denying his 
divinity. I object to all quarrels on this point. It matters not to 
me whether Jesus was a myth, a divinely commissioned seraph, a 
great and good reformer, or a real avatar ; I adore the character 
whether it be real or ideal — and that ideal, never surpassed, is not 
the dead and resurrected young man of Bethlehem, of nearly 
nineteen hundred years ago ; it matters not whether the crucified 
man was divinely fathered, or the son of Joseph the carpenter, — 
a priest's offspring, a Magdalen's child, the chieftain of a new sect, 
— as is variously asserted ; for the spirit of the character is the 
real Christ, the road to Glory, the avenue to Peace, Quiet, Good 
and Rest. It is folly to raise questions about the individual Jesus ; 
for, real or mythical, the example reputed to be of him is unques- 
tionably magnificent. He who follows it will live right, and, dy- 
ing, be far from wrong. Why trouble ourselves with Strauss and 
the cavillers ; Fuerbach or Compte, Renan or " Ecce Homo," " Ho- 
mo-Deus " or " Deus-Homo" ? The Christ of my soul, my inmost 
selfhood — the thing within me, deathless — is the universal Spirit 
of Good, hovering over us and bathing the universe, into which I 
seek to plunge myself, be washed clean, and made pure. Viewing 
Christ and God from a purely orthodox standpoint, my belief in 
either is not strong ; but viewed from this, the summit of the ages, 
both, to me, are the sublimest of realities. 

We are told by one set of reasoners, that God and Nature are 
one. I do not believe it, neither does my soul accept the view, 
that regards Deity as the tyrant, vengeful being who sits en- 
throned upon the pinnacle of the universe, and rains down blessings 
on one hand and hurls indiscriminate damnation on the other. We 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 13 

are told that God is heat, and life, and light, and electricity, — which 
may be true ; but, if so, that view is only partial, for he is all that 
andfarlnore. We are told that he is an active power, manifesting 
himself in growth, change, electrically, chemically, magnetically, 
mechanically, spiritually, and in other modes, — all of which is 
true ; and yet one-half the great story has not then been told. Our 
Father is not a tj^rant ; he has a throne ; he is surrounded by 
angels ; he is central, located, yet ubiquitous. He is like man in 
one respect. Man's spirit and intelligence pervade his body ; but 
his centre, or pivot, is in the largest brain. Just so is God abroad 
through his body, — the universal system of Nature ; but that Na- 
ture has a centre, the universe has a sensorium, and there, at that 
point, of which more by and by, God exists. Zerclusht says : A 
winged globe : when the soul was created it had wings. They fell 
away when it descended from its native element ; and cannot re- 
turn till they are regained. How? By sprinkling them with the 
waters of life ! Where are they, these waters ? In the gardens of 
God. How are they to be reached ? By following God, when he 
pays his daily visit to the soul. Now, there is a great deal in this 
riddle of Zoroaster. I shall solve it presently ; for it is a solemn 
thing, albeit we laugh all gods to utter scorn, that are modelled 
after us. We tell Ashtoreth and Astarte that they are eternally 
dead ; while Dagon, Bel, and fifty other gods do but excite our de- 
rision and contempt ; nor have we too much respect for Pan, or any 
other of that numerous family ; for only the " Great Positive 
Mind " of the Harmonialists satisfies our yearnings, or answers 
the soul's demand for a God. 

Morell tells us that we cannot divest our mind of the belief 
that there is something positive in the glance which the human 
soul casts upon the world of infinity and eternity ; that there is a 
goal, a point of points, in short, a conscious God ; and we believe 
Morell ; yet, while doing so, are startled by Sir William Hamil- 
ton's " Man can have no knowledge of the Infinite God." I do not 
agree with Hamilton. Calderwood says : " There can be no image 
of the Infinite." This maj r not be entirely true. Sometimes there 
arise to the surface certain primary beliefs, theretofore lying perdu 
in the deeps of the soul ; and an invincible conviction of God's ex- 
istence is the strongest of these. It is strange that philosophers 
cannot see that two, nay, three universes exist, one of which — 



14 AFTER DEATH; 

the Material — is but the projected shadow of the other — the 
Spiritual — and hence is negatived by it ; for which reason it will 
be forever impossible for the material, cognizing faculties to grasp 
that which environs and stretches so immeasurably above it. 
Years ago, I did not dream that time and sorrow and deep trouble 
and constant yearning would develop a faculty whose functions 
should be that of knowing God, just as that of numbers, — starting 
from a 1, 2, 3, my boj r , and 5 and 5 are 10, my girl, presently deals 
with the calculus, differential and integral, skips to fluxions, and 
then measures interstellar spaces and weighs the worlds of farther 
heaven. I know this to be true. I used to believe that not till 
we were dead and begun to " be " and move in another state, could 
we know the mysteries, God, time, soul, space ! That here, at 
best, we are only vouchsafed imperfect glimpses thereof, during 
certain peculiar conditions inducible by mesmerism and drugs of 
various kinds. But these views are changed. There is now devel- 
oping in many persons a new or God-knowing faculty ; and one of 
its first revelations to us is, that God is not Panthea or Nature, 
for that is only his vehicle ; that he is not a being of infinite, ex- 
tension, but infinitely intelligent, qualitatively and quantitatively. 
This we know by faith alone, which declares that God is ; while 
the new power tells us what he is. 

The fleet of stars now sailing down the deep ; the storm-fiend, 
lightning-crowned, striding forth to ruin and destroy ; the nebulous 
clusters around the galactic poles, do not proclaim God's being 
half so solemnly as does this little faculty of the soul, that whis- 
pers us, in the midst of the rush and whirl of life, that God lives 
and is; that the great aum, the Lord of lords, has a being, actual, 
personal, though impersonal ; central, yet circumvolving ; effulgent, 
glorious, — the Sunshine of Eternal Universes, — yet the densest 
Shadow that exists, — the clearest light, yet most unfathomable 
nrystery ! God is afar off us all, yet ever near at hand. 

And this organ, this God-knowing faculty, or power or qual- 
ity of the mind assures us that we — all we are — all our faculties 
and actions, are weighed in the scales of the great Eterne. 

Aware that physical death is inevitable, the wise man in whom 
it begins to operate, avails himself of every opportunity to learn ; 
he hesitates not to question all things, to challenge all conclusions ; 
demanding the proofs at every step of his great life-induction, 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 15 

even at the risk of being wrongly understood as I have been, and 
denounced accordingly. But no true man will flinch from duty on 
that account. He ought not, will not, suffer his soul to be warped 
from her true purposes, knowing that ignorance, cupidity, and lust 
of power are the baleful trio of this present civilization. He 
suffers and grows strong ; his new faculty having taught him that 
the human soul is in reality an emanation from Deity, — • the august 
God, and that to it he has imparted original and essential knowl- 
edge, the organs of which are so many windows for his multitudi- 
nous outlooks upon the vast sea, whereon floats all matter, with 
its accidents, like so many tiny shallops on the calm bosom of a 
silver-breasted lake ! 

However earnestly a number of men may accept or believe 
a thing, doctrine, dogma, or system, it by no means follows that 
they believe the truth ; but when universal Man not only assents 
to, but in some form affirms, the existence of a God supreme, 
their conceptions may not be correct, but it is certain that there 
must be a ground for their belief, — a God somewhere in the uni- 
verse. 

Let us reflect but one moment, as, admitting the idleness of all 
these avatar dreams of past ages, we take a look at the vast ma- 
chine, — the universe, — a mere speck of which we are ourselves, 
and all our doubts will vanish, as do vapors before the mountain 
blast, or suddenly uprisen sun ; for the proofs of God's existence 
do not come singly, or weakly, but rush in mighty, resistless 
armies, upon our half reluctant souls ; sweeping all our doubts 
away like straws before the gale ! True, we may not be able to 
satisfactorily locate or personify Deity, but cannot help admitting 
the existence of a great and mysterious power, in constant action, 
and which, for want of a better term, we call God. 

When a man has thus pondered, and attained this grand con- 
viction, true happiness and true progress have begun. He is 
serene now, and calm. He has learned that the soul is the mirror 
of the universe, standing in relationship to all living things ; that 
she is illuminated by an inward light that flows through this new 
organ ; but the tempests of the passions, the multitude of sensual 
impressions, the dissipations, darken the light, whose glory only 
diffuses itself when it burns alone, and all is peace and harmony 
within. 



16 AFTER DEATH; 

When we know ourselves to be separated from all outward influ- 
ences, and desire only to be guided by this universal light, then 
only do we find in ourselves pure and certain knowledge. Purity 
of Purpose, Will, and Deed, are the keys which unlock the gates of 
Power, which is Knowledge. In the state of concentration which 
follows, when we resolve to be truly good, the soul can analyze all 
objects, things, and subjects on which its attention may rest ; and 
it can unite itself with them, penetrate their substance, explore, 
untrammelled, all mysteries, even unto God himself, — so know 
more of him than hath yet been known, and become master of all 
important truths beside. 

Love is the touchstone of knowledge ; but to be pure, it must be 
universal, and embrace all God's creatures in heaven, on earth, 
and in the worlds around us. All efforts of the true God-student 
are not to be confined to studies of former writings about Deity, 
but to elevate and purify himself. His path will be thorny, his 
road very rough ; but, although he suffers, the guerdon is certain, 
for so shall the gates of glory be opened unto him, and he be put 
in possession of the sacred key. I, therefore, announce a new 
truth, — not original with me, but handed down the ages from the 
peerless lips of Christ himself, but heretofore not well understood. 
And that truth is, that God is, in one sense, a condition of exist- 
ence. " I and my Father are one," said Jesus. Why? How? I 
reply : It has been said that the universe is dual, or material and 
spiritual. I believe it to be triplicate, — Material, Spiritual, and 
Deific, and that a man can become so perfectly good and pure as 
to be in a material body, leading a spiritual life, and immersed in 
God at the same time ; not as the Buddhists have it, or the 
churches either, but at perfect union with the great Soul of the 
universe, even while living in this valley of Unrest and Shadow. 
Life is the vehicle of soul, soul the vehicle of God. Man is a 
dual mind : with the outer he knows all the things of matter, its 
accidents and incidents ; with the inner, he cognizes that which is 
disparated from matter, or spiritual things ; and with this inner 
power refined and clarified, he is able to cognize the Great Su- 
preme, — to cast a bridge across the gulf of death, and land him 
safely on the further side. Hence, I do not believe in a distant 
God, or a Christ nineteen hundred years off, but in an ever-present 
Creator, and an ever-present Way. Christ is to me more than a 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 17 

myth or a fancy. He is more of God than all others ; and when 
he says to me, " Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy- 
laden and I will give, you rest," it means life to me ; and when I 
go on the wings of prayer, I fly back with a blessing. I wish there 
was more of Christ in the churches, and that those who profess, 
also possessed him, and were immersed in that sea of love which 
I call the God-condition, and which I believe will be the state of 
all good men by and by. I believe in God more than some Spirit- 
ualists, more than some Christians ; hence am not a party-man or 
sectarian, because I believe that my soul is filled with the divine 
truth of a new era in Religion, and I announce it to the world. 
Let us now inquire what the Deity is, and where? in all hu- 
mility and trust. I hold the universe to be triplicate, — that is to 
say, Material, Spiritual, and Deific, — each an octave above the 
other. 

First. We know that all the suns and worlds of space could be 
crowded into a very small corner of the vast expanse around us ; 
we also know that matter is impermanent, fleeting, changeful, 
and therefore must have had, if not an absolute commencement, 
at least a beginning in the form in which we see and know it ; 
and that it is everywhere subservient to Mind — the Supreme 
Mind. 

Second. We know that the direct flight of matter is toward 
spirit ; that is, toward refinement, rarefaction, spiritual, essential, 
aromal conditions. 

Third. Mind is like spirit and matter, graded ; and we ascend 
from the Bushman of Africa to the loftiest genius that ever lived, 
— each ascending grade being one step nearer the Archetype, the 
Creator, the Supreme. Now, a human mind is restless ; its law, 
expansion ; hence it must, if immortal, one day reach an intellect- 
ual altitude, God-like and grand, and yet can never reach the 
absolute, because it is limited, that is boundless. Its development 
is in lines and curves. God is fulness, absolute completeness. 
Mind finds its field in nature, but the unconditioned God filtrates 
nature, hence cannot be contained wholly within that sphere ; and, 
therefore, the soul that seeks God must climb the sky, sweep 
through the brotherhoods and hierarchies, and challenge the great 
Beyond for an answer to its great question, " What is Deity?" 
I have already defined God as the brain of the universe, and its 
3 



18 AFTER DEATH; 

soul ; but he is divinely more than that, for he is the centre, and 
pervades, by his aura, which is life, embracing law and principles, 
the vast domains of existence. 

The materia] universe is bounded, limited, circumscribed, and 
circumvolved, or surrounded, by a vast and almost inconceivable 
ocean of Spirit, and on the breast of that vast sea are cushioned the 
ethereal belts, zones, and worlds, as are also the material constella- 
tions. The material zones of constellations revolve within corre- 
sponding spiritual or ethereal zones or belts, on, all sides of the 
spaces, ; — seven of them ; and in the midst of this space, equi-dis- 
tant from each of the seven, embracing alike the material and 
ethereal zones, belts, rings, universes and constellations, — in the 
profound and awful deeps of Distance, — is a Third Universe of 
universes, — and this is the Vortex, the centre, — the dwelling- 
place of Power, the seat of Force, the fountain of all Energy, — 
the unimaginable dwelling-place of the great I am, — the super- 
celestial throne of the ever-living God ! Alone ? No ! The puri- 
fied souls of the myriads of dead centuries are there, contemplar, 
but not co-equal Gods. He is there — in Human Form, but not in 
human shape. Here concentrate, at one point, the quintessence 
of all within the entire family of universes. God is not Panthea, 
Jehovah, Aum, Brahm, Allah, Jove. He is self-conscious. Not 
heat or motion, but the soul of these ; not light, or life, or electric- 
ity, but their life. Not spirit or soul, but souls' and spirits' crys- 
tallization. Not intelligence, but its concentration, its refinement, 
its last and final stage. Not music, or form, or tone, or beauty, 
but their infinite and last sublimation, — an auroral Sun of suns, 
ever-moving, from whose negative radiations convolving nebulae 
are formed, — themselves the prolific parents of immeasurable gal- 
axies, not of stars, but of astral systems. And this God was never 
wholly incarnate, yet pulsed through many an avatar — filled the 
hearts of many a Christ, and will till time shall be no more. Hence 
it follows that no soul — for souls are incarnate rays from God — 
ever was, or can be, wholly lost ; and again, that no antagonistic 
power can exist within the domain, lit up by rays from his grand 
Deific Brain. And this is the mysterious God I worship ; and he 
is whom Jesus proclaimed, and adored, and whose rays soften the 
most obdurate heart, and not unfrequently transforms Christians 
into followers of the glorious religion of Jesus Christ, — the most 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 19 

perfect that this world has ever yet developed or produced. This 
God lives, moves, sleeps not — loves all. He it is that springs 
the wires of the Ages, and ordains the drama of the centuries. 
To him I pray, when all the world is hostile, and bigots rave and 
persecute. He it is, who tells me, " Blessed are ye when men 
shall persecute and revile you falsely for my sake." And so I rely 
on him, and say, let the storm come down ; God rules and reigns ; 
all will yet be well. He is here, there, everywhere ; in the bend- 
ing heavens, and in everything that lives, moves, and hath a being. 
He protects and loves us all, and favors us by special Providence 
through angelic proxies when we do right — which is his will. 
He hears our prayers, and if we pray well, will answer them. He 
lives and loves, rules and governs. He gave us Christ and Cour- 
age, Hope and Faith ; therefore we will trust him, for " He doeth 
all things well." 

Here then, we have taken the first step onward ; we have joined 
the primary classes ; we have taken the first degree, and become 
entered apprentices in the infinite Gkand Lodge ! and we realize, 
concerning God, the magnificent significance of Emerson's sublime 
conception of " Brahma " : 

" They reckon ill who leave Me out 
When Me they fly, I am the wings ; 
I am the Doubter, — and the doubt ; — 
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings." 

We have reached a faint view of the fact that a bridge extends 
from us to God, connecting the two ends of the vast creation. 
Of course, before we know about this bridge, its nature, con- 
struction, and extension, we must know something about its either 
end, — man on the hither ; nature, the stream it crosses ; and God 
at the further side, in whose centre are anchored the eternal cables 
that sustain the mighty superstructure. 

Now our primary doubts are solved ; now that we can no longer 
drift upon a shoreless sea of unbelief; now that we are certain of 
an under, circumvolving and Over Soul, maugre all our inability 
to define or have a clear conception thereof, — we begin the work 
of introspection ; and this indicates the soul's real thirst for 
knowledge ; for from the moment we begin to look within, as well 
as without, in that same moment we commence to ask a series of 
questions, each for him or herself. "What am I? Whither go- 



20 AFTEK DEATH ; 

ing ? Whence ? I came hither through the narrow channel of 
mortal birth : but from where ? Did I originate in the dear moth- 
ers' breast ? — Her and my father's bodies ? Or came I by that 
road from some other unknown country, afar off in the azure? 
Who knows ? Are man's and woman's physical organs capable of 
elaborating soul? Or is the metempsychosis true? And if 
true, where was the starting-point ? " 

" One thing I know, and that is : Presently I shall stop breath- 
ing ; and what then ? Ah ! there's the rub ! Where then ? and 
how am I to get there ? and when there, what am I to do ? Here 
I live by eating, drinking, sleeping, and being clad ; but when I 
am dead how am I to exist ? how am I to breathe without lungs, 
digest without a stomach, keep warm without blood and a heart to 
pump it through me ? How am I to live without eating ; and how 
can I eat without teeth, tongue, jaws, saliva, and appetite ? How 
am I to hear without ears, see without eyes, feel without nerves, 
move without limbs, or think without a brain? for when dead I 
certainly know that all the organs perish, and all their functions 
cease ! " And so the man asks countless questions to some of the 
surface ones of which he reads appropriate answers in the psycho- 
logical literature of the age ; but no matter how satisfactory these 
may be in a rational point of view, they do not, and never can, 
thoroughly quench his soul's great thirst. He wants to see and - 
know for himself, and will not sleep contentedly till rocked in the 
cradle of personal certainty, derivable only from individual and 
home experience. But there are some questions, thus asked, to 
which no response comes, either from without or within ; and 
then down we go into a sort of Bunyanian slough of despond sit- 
uated in the valley of Unrest, and surrounded by as many destroy- 
ing angels and tempting devils as Milton's imaginary hell was 
supposed capable of vomiting forth. Yet, in that same valley, 
rare and precious gems abound. It is Sinbad's diamond mine ; 
It is the philosophical well of Zem Zem ! Truth lies at the bottom 
thereof, and whoever wants her must dive deeply, because she 
steadily refuses to be coaxed up, frightened, or fished out. 
Your true student undergoes two mental processes simulta- 
neously ; he gives off and takes on ; for, like the earth, he has a 
double motion, centripetal and centrifugal, — nay, three ; for he 
is continually changing his poles, and altering the plane of his 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 21 

mental evolution to the great line of the intellectual and moral 
ecliptic. Truth is like yeast in flour ; the more a soul has the 
higher it rises. The true student gathers in and casts off; learns, 
and learns to unlearn ; and imperceptibly becomes a new man be- 
fore he is well aware of his change of grooves. There are, how- 
ever, some natures that" while ever ready to accept new-found 
truth, yet cling like barnacles to old error. They insist on har- 
monizing incompatibilities ; tying Noah to spirit rappings, Moses 
to John Brown, and Confucius to the present century, — neither of 
which is possible, else progress is a lie ! Why ? Because Chris- 
tianity is older than Christ, and Truth is newer than the last book 
written on it. Error is protean ; experience is kaleidoscopic. 
You seldom see the same figure twice successively, and must have 
a good memory to know whether you have seen it before, for the 
reason that seers differ in their accounts of things seen, — a natu- 
ral consequence of diverse organizations ; innumerable sects have 
arisen, all of which are far more intent upon making a good fight 
with each other, than of getting to "heaven." Religion is their 
" battle cry," and nothing more. Fences are in vogue to-day ; and 
fences are a fallacy so far as the moral life is concerned. " He that 
believeth (as I do) shall be saved ; but he that believeth not (as 
I do) shall be damned." "Baptidzo et Baptizo ! get on board of 
Paul's boat ! " cries the Rev. Dr. Dry-as-dust. " Get thee hither, 
friend, ive will conduct thee to the Ark of Safety ! " says Goodman 
Broadbrim. " Shout along the way to Zion," sings oat Brother 
Dove, with claivs and eagle bill. " Hear the truth rapped out on 
my table!" says a Spiritualist, in all honesty. "Oh, that's all 
nonsense ! I believe in the Book of Mormon ! " yells another. 
" There's no hell," says the next ; " Or heaven ! " screams his 
neighbor. Pourquoi ? Simply because all fences -are bad ; and 
that's the way God takes to tear them down. 

One life, one origin, one God, one destiny, one religion, one hu- 
manity, is the universal (coming) creed. 

You can't get stout or strong by proxy, either in soul or body. 
You must eat and drink to that end. Go down into the valley ; 
dig for yourself; quench your own thirst at the pool; and then, 
refreshed, up, up and away toward the green fields of the true 
Eden, where grow the trees of life and knowledge, ^and there pluck 
flowers and weave chaplets for your own brows, — self-crowned, or 



22 AFTER DEATH ; 

not at all ! God helps him who helps himself ! and he who does 
it not will wither and decay ; for even souls grow thin and slim, 
or else wax fat and strong. 

In what else than self-effort can redemption consist ? Not from 
original sin — for that's a long way off, somewhere among the first 
people that existed on the first earths of the univercoelum, five 
hundred million ages ago ! — but from intellectual and moral pu- 
erility ! Conceded. Well, then, let the motto be " Excelsior ! " 
" Try ! " 

The present, above all others, is pre-eminently the era of ques- 
tion-asking. We all want to probe the unknown, and scan the un- 
searched ; and that, too, despite the mimic thunder that forbids us, 
and declares certain mysteries to be altogether past finding out. 
Especially is it true that men are questioning the hitherto settled 
dicta of churches concerning our post-mortem existence and status 
after death. It is too late in the day for us to rest satisfied with 
the meagre revelations of printed script handed down through the 
dusty stairs of ages past. 

We rebel against the vague generalities that passed current 
" lang syne." They are too crude for these times ; for the said 
times have changed, lately ; and even the cannibals no longer eat 
the missionaries — raw; they cook them, and serve you up a pot- 
age au tete de missionaire With sauce piquante, in fine style ; being 
quite au fait in cooking those sent out to cook them. In these 
days missionary soup, of various kinds, greets all visitors to the 
Society Islands, just as we cook each other in a different man- 
ner. Now if the subjects, of " The King of the Cannibal Islands " 
have advanced to a perception and appreciation of the mageric art, 
so have we in others. We do not, by any means, believe so 
strongly in what the Reverend John Smith says from his pulpit, 
for we go to sleep long before he reaches fifteenthly ; and care but 
little either for his poundings of the cushion, or expoundings 
of the Scripture. Existence is too practical in these days. He 
cannot so easily impound our reason, souls or dollars, — the last 
being his great aim, and for the which he was originally " called." 
Aristotle and Bacon are united in these days,, and we get at 
truth by the " high priori," as well as other roads. Refusing to 
be conducted toward truth, by the deductive or inductive paths 
alone, we very frequently leave earth altogether, and, while our 



OE, DLSBODIED MAN. 23 

bodies are snugly blanketed, our souls are comfortably taking- 
notes among the distant constellations. In these days not one of 
the multitude of reasons formerly assigned as triumphantly sus- 
taining the dogma of human immortality will do. Long ago it 
required proofs of a different mould than Plato's reasonings, or 
the olla podridas offered from the pulpits, to convince people of 
mind of the fact of immortality ; and it is only just now that these 
proofs have come along. It is proposed in this work to present a 
few of these better reasons. 

If twenty men see an object which they all describe alike, you 
may take it for granted that such an object really exists. Well ; 
not twenty, but five hundred thousand individuals, within these 
twenty last past years, have unitedly borne testimony to the fact 
of the existence of a spiritual world, and we must accept, because 
it is impossible to gainsay or impugn their evidence. 

If man had made half as long and earnest efforts to harmonize 
contending interests and factions as he has to fathom the abyss, — 
master his ignorance of what lies beyond his natural or external 
range of vision, — the millenial epoch had long since come. His 
fault has been that his efforts have either been partial, wrongly di- 
rected, or he has relied on men who claimed a great deal too much 
knowledge regarding things supernal and celestial. 

At length the civilized world has grown tired of the Weary, 
weary A's, and the barren, barren B's, stale stuff and mouldy, 
upon which it has fed, and lo ! the supply comes to meet the 
demand ; seers are born, lucids discovered, the veil torn away, 
and light, from what has been called the region of darkness, begins 
to flow in, for it is most unquestionably true that — 

" Sometimes the aerial synods bend, 
And the mighty choirs descend ; 
And the brains of men thenceforth 
Teem with unaccustomed thoughts." 

Characters abound, to whom are ascribed strange powers of a 
spiritual nature, and the concurrent testimony of all such, is that a 
spiritual country really exists, whence messengers not infrequently 
journey hitherward. All this the great world knows, but beyond 
that point it has gone but a very little way. 

Spiritualism, in its advent, has been iconoclastic, and not a few 
sturdy blows has it struck at the cherished images of the past. That 



24 AFTER DEATH ; OR, DISBODIED MAN. 

was its puerile side and mission. Now rises Clairvoyance to the 
task of eclectic sifting ; thence to a positive career of building. 
Moses and Aaron, Joshua and Jairam get fewer thwacks now, 
at the tongues of mediums and eolists, than awhile since, and 
clairvoyants claim a hearing. 

We are tired of negations, sick of rose-water, full to satiety of 
optimism, and long for a little change in our mental diet, and the 
sense of these facts. 

It is a very noticeable fact that even among the vast army of 
Spiritualists but few positive opinions exist concerning the act- 
uality and. substantiality of the spiritual world. They accept 
the notion generally, but have not, as a body, any very clear 
conceptions of what spirit is, or where spirits dwell. During the 
first four years of modern spiritual manifestations there was a 
great deal of inquiry and speculation on these points ; but it 
gradually died out, and men seemed to have lost sight of the very 
points that ought to have claimed most of their attention. They 
have claimed their system to be the best the world ever yet saw, 
and that it really accomplishes more for the true interests of the 
human race than any other that ever existed ; but this claim is 
derided by nearly every church in Christendom, for it is commonly 
asked of Spiritualists, " If }^our system is so very perfect and su- 
perior to all others, why is it that a higher and purer tone of 
morals and religion does not exist among you ? Where are your 
free and open-handed charities ? How happens it that you allow 
your very ministers — your media ■ — to almost starve to death ? 
Why, if your system is so perfect, is there so much scandal, back- 
biting, slander, and bitterness in your ranks ? And why has not 
your system, by its powerful influence upon the practiced lives of 
its votaries, convinced mankind of its superlative excellence be- 
yond all others?" Now I do not pretend to universal wisdom, 
nor to be able to render a just verdict in the case ; but it seems to 
me that no system, in its infancy, can be expected to exhibit as 
great perfection as those that have been ripened by time. That 
Spiritualism has given an intellectual filip to the age is conceded 
on all hands ; and that it will presently wear off its angles, corners, 
sharp points, and crudities, is equally certain. The mission of 
Spiritualism, in my judgment, has hitherto been that of an eye- 
glass, enabling all men to see God's Truth more clearly. 



CHAPTER II. 

WHY IS MAN IMMORTAL? — THE REPLY SINGULAR PROOFS — INVISIBLE PEOPLE 

"BELIGION" THE LIVER — WHAT IS GOD? — THE ANSWER THE EXACT LOCALITY 

OP HELL WHITE-BLOODED PEOPLE OP THE FUTURE — AN ASTOUNDING PROPHECY. 

Suppose that you, the reader, should take it into your head to 
ask the writer certain questions ; if the latter was competent to 
answer them, the former would have the right of testing the sound- 
ness of the replies by the rules of the best logic extant. Before 
entering on the great task that lies before him, therefore, he, the 
writer, proposes to submit himself and the cause he advocates to 
such a test and trial. 

Then let it be understood that the questioner, throughout, repre- 
sents the skeptical world ; and that he, conceding nothing as grant- 
ed, demands all, — like Shylock, must have his fall due. Thus we 
shall be able to do something more than "guess at truth." 

Premising that I will not attempt to fully solve the problem 
" What, where, and who is God? " because I cannot do it, although 
believing in his existence, I — trusting to be excused for the third 
time using the personal pronoun — say to the disbeliever, "Ask 
on!" 

Question. — " You proclaim human immortality ; I for the sake 
of learning, deny it, and demand the logical reasons of your belief 
in that mysterious dogma." 

Response. — I believe in human immortality because : — 

1. The great majority of human kind, in every clime and age, 
and under all varieties of creeds, condition, and faith, believe it ; 
and it is impossible for a faith so widely spread not to be founded 
on a truth. 

2. Because all human history is replete with testimony affirm- 
ing the reappearance on earth of persons known to be dead. In- 
formation unknown to the living has, in millions of instances, 
been imparted by such reappearing persons to the living, or rather 

the embodied. 

4 ' ■ 25 



26 AETER DEATH; 

Question. — "But how do you know, supposing these appear- 
ances are not mere phasmas, that they are disbodied men and 
women ? " 

3. Because things that resemble each other in all respects must 
be of the same species. These disbodied people look like us, 
claim to be of us ; they love us, hate us, deceive us, caution, warn 
and protect us, and in all respects are like us ; some being wise, 
and some otherwise. 

Question. — " How, supposing we admit them to be human, do 
you know but that they are from other worlds, and not from this ? 
Why may there not be those who know all that we know of our- 
selves, and who amuse themselves at our expense? " 

4. (a.) "We know these people to be human, because of all 
known creation man is the only one that can lie. They do some- 
times tell fibs ; ergo, we pronounce them human, and if one of 
these ethereal people deceives us, it proves that immortality is not 
the result of the operation of either intellectual or moral, but of 
some other law or laws. 

(6.) No two things in nature are precisely alike. We have no 
reason to believe that there exists another world exactly like this ; 
nor that the people of those worlds resemble us in all respects. 

(c.) No adequate motive (and man everywhere, must act from 
motives) exists for the denizens of other worlds either to deceive 
us or to make themselves so familiar with the minutiae of our af- 
fairs, as do these, our ethereal visitants. 

Question. — " But these visitants are spiritual and therefore in- 
visible ; now how is it possible they can be human ? " 

5. You cannot see air, gas, or clear glass, yet all these are gross 
and heavy. You cannot even see a man I We are just as intangi- 
ble before, as after death. You see his coat, his skin, blood, bones, 
nerves, brain ; 'Ms qualities and properties all the time, but not 
himself. Spirit forever eludes physical sight, save under extraor- 
dinary conditions, quite exceptional to the rule. We universally 
speak of " my bocty." Because we instinctively know that the 
body is not us. No man ever saw another, for the reason that 
man himself resides in sealed chambers in the brain. The body 
is his general organ, his nerves the feelers, and his eyes the win- 
dows through which he knows the outer world. It is no argument 
against immortaljty that souls are unseeable ; for we cannot see the 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 27 

essence of anything whatever ; and at best can become only par- 
tially acquainted with anything. 

Question. — "I have heard that immortality resulted only from 
a strong belief in the Christian creed ! Is faith essential to it? " 

6. God created all men, we are taught. He must love all men 
equally well. All men resemble each other, and all differences be- 
tween persons or races are in degree only, for all are subject to the 
one great law of nature ; hence Carlyle and Quashee are on a par, 
so far as natural law is concerned ,; and if one man survives death 
and rises triumphant thereafter, that one fact guarantees the im- 
mortality of the entire human — strictly human — races ; because - 
the one man achieved it through a law, and all others that re- 
semble him in what constitutes his humanity, must also, like him, 
be death-proof, so far as the real self-hood is concerned — the I — 
the self — the ego. . All the trees, earth, water, vegetation, and 
animal life on the globe, are but so many stomachs digesting the 
crude material, and elaborating therefrom its finest essences, or 
unparticled matter. We have reason to believe that in man this 
chemical process reaches its ultimation ; for if man's spirit was 
particled, the bullet that takes off his material leg or arm, would 
also carry off the correspondent ethereal limbs. Instead of which 
we constantly scratch our knees, albeit the physical leg lays buried 
in the garden, or adorns, in liquor, some surgeon's shelf. Our 
knee still itches, and still we scratch at the place where we once 
saw it ! Well, if the knee or arm is not destroyed, save so far as 
flesh and blood are concerned, why you may dissect his lungs 
away ; then his bowels, body, brain, and still the man remains in- 
tact, undissectable, undisturbed, uncut, — wholly none-get-atible. 
It is this invisible man that stalks about the streets with so many 
pounds of matter ; and who, when at last he gets rid of his load, — 
at death, — takes pleasure-trips back to his old homestead, raps^ 
common sense into, and folly out of, our heads ; points us to the 
long bridge that spans the eternal gulf that will forever separate 
the ethereal from the material worlds ; brings to us the new gos- 
pel of love and heaven, as realities instead of dreams ; prepares 
us for the pleasant journey ; proclaims the extinguishment of hell, 
and the death of all the bugaboos ; heralds the better time coming ; 
soothes our sorrows ; lifts up our bowed-down heads and hearts ; 
robs death of its terrors, and the grave of its gloom ! 



28 AFTER DEATH ; 

v 

7. I repeat the argument suggested in preceding lines of this 
work. A sailor, being bored by a parson, replied, "If I am to be 
born hard, live hard, fare on hard tack and salt junk ; be kicked 
and buffeted about by bad captains and worse mates ; sleep on 
the soft side of an oak plank ; dream the devil has got me in his 
clutches, or that Bill Marlinspike has just cut sticks with my wife 
and kids ; wake up in a nor'-wester ; get shipwrecked on the Ton- 
go Islands ; help eat the ship's carpenter made into soup, and 
then die and go to hell at last, it is what I call par-tic-u-lar-ly hard, 
if not more so ! " So I think, too. The sailor's plea is backed by 
sound philosophy. There is no satisfaction on this side of the 
grave ! Not one of us realizes our anticipations ; joy escapes us 
ere we have tasted its promising cup ; love centres round self, and 
is finally summed up as a pleasant dream. Knowledge but whets 
our appetite for more, and that more must be dived for in the 
dark. 

Ambition is a cancer that eats out our hearts, and wealth turns 
us into vinegar before our time. 

Eeligion ! I mean the popular party, — mutual- admiration - 
society sort, — what is it, in presence of the revelations of psychical 
science ? An excitement, mainly, — dependent on the size and 
state of the liver and spleen. Negroes have large livers and 
plenty of " religion." Now every one of man's countless faculties 
are susceptible of infinite expansion. We begin with, "Twice one 
are two ; three times three are nine," and in a little while we be- 
gin to weigh the planets, and calculate the distances of the blaz- 
ing suns of further space ! And are we satisfied then ? Is that 
the limit of the mathematical faculty ? Verily I trow not ! Life 
here on earth is all too brief and circumscribed, jammed in, im- 
peded, and obstructed, to permit even half play, scope, and growth, 
to a single faculty or power of the mind ! Can it be that this 
deathless thirst of the soul, these unutterable longings, are 
never to be satisfied? Are we never to take the quenching 
draught ? I trow yes ! else God and the Universe exist in vain. 

Not here, but over yonder, across the deep, dark river will they 
be, — away yonder, glory be to Heaven's Lord, — the Peerless God 
of right, — where a man's bank-stock, coat, stature, money, and 
color, God's own signet on human brows — are not sine qua non 
to admission into the University ! Apply this reasoning to all the 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 29 

known faculties of the mind, — never forgetting that man is yet 
but an infant, and this only a baby-world, not yet done suckling 
at the teats of the Past ; that hundreds of faculties and powers 
are yet to be unfolded ; that probably months, if not years of 
centuries must pass before one half the latent man comes up and 
out, — one half the family of mental forces be grown even to 
puberty, — so to speak ; apply it to all the known and possible 
passions, loves, ambitions ; take even those we are familiar with, 
— and I will not insult your understanding, or linger on this point, 
■ — and it is impossible not to see that threescore years and ten 
may suffice for the "primer" development of many, but that 
even myriads of ages, at topmost speed of advancement will — 
ay, must, in the nature of things ! — still find him a " Freshman, " 
or at best a " Sophomore, " in God's stupendous College ! When, 
how, or where, he will graduate, if ever, I, at least, am not so 
presumptuous as to attempt to state or hazard even a conjecture. 
Sufficient for me to know that he does leave this planet, does find 
a new home, — houses not made with hands, in the starry heavens ; 
and that he does go to school, and learn lessons far more impor- 
tant than any ever studied here. 

Question. — " Sir, you say that we, by virtue of our organiza- 
tion alone, are destined to a life beyond the grave. Now, is that 
belief based upon your experience of modern spiritualism ? " 

Answer. — No I — emphatically No ! 

My knowledge of, not mere belief in, immortal life has not been 
derived from an experience of what purports to intercourse with 
disbodied men and women, through any kind or phase of the 
so-called spiritual manifestations. I am, at this writing of the 
first edition of this book, here in the carpenter shop of Auguste 
Landry, in St. Martinsville, St. Martin's Parish, Louisiana, May 
12th, 1866, over forty years of age. Twenty-five of those years, 
have mainly been spent in the one single pursuit of knowledge on 
the subjects whereof I am now writing, — concerning Psychical 
Man. I have sought for this knowledge in twelve States of this 
Union ; in France, Ireland, Scotland, England, Turkey, Egypt, 
Syria, Central and Western America, Arabia, Mexico, and Cali- 
fornia. 

I was born a Seer, and for many years have been more familiar 
with disbodied men and women, and their magnificent dwelling- 



30 AFTER death; 

place across the river Death, — r know more, far more, of their 
splendid worlds than I do of that which holds my suffering body, 
and still more suffering soul. 

The conclusion I have reached as the total result of all my 
reading, investigation, hearsay, and actual personal experience, 
is, that intercourse between our own and the so-called world of 
spirits, — more properly, disbodied people, or ethereal men and 
women, — is, and for long ages has been, a fixed and indis- 
putable fact, — most unequivocally demonstrated, in all lands, by 
all classes of minds, in a myriad ways ; and so firmly established, 
rooted, grounded, as to be neither prevented, disproved, gainsaid, 
or denied, by any power on the earth, or off it. 

If it be asked : Do all these ethereal people, when questioned, 
speak the truth ? Can we trust, believe, rely upon what they tell 
us now, and have been reported to tell all along the ages ? Then 
I should answer : All men, on earth, are not habituated to speak 
the truth, neither can they be supposed to do so simply because 
disrobed of flesh and blood. Habit is second nature, and it takes 
time to cure a liar, as it does the 'scrofula or cholera. There are 
chronic liars in both worlds ; but then, a well-proven lie, once fas- 
tened on a spirit, demonstrates his existence quite as well as if he 
told the most glowing truth. It is the teller we want to fix, and 
not what he may happen to tell ! Identity once proven, we need 
ask no more, for immortality is demonstrated. 

We humans are like sponges, absorbent ; we are chronically 
angular, and not a half-way perfect man or woman ever existed, 
perhaps never will, for the horizon expands and stretches away to 
the Ideal and Possible, as we ascend life's ragged, rugged moun- 
tains. 

Soul, — which I define to be the Think-Part of us, — like a photo- 
plate, is susceptible to all sorts of impressions, impingements, 
lights and shades, and those that are chemically strongest affect us 
most and last the longest ; for even now, in the 19th century, the 
vandal proclivities of our barbarian ancestors crop out, and we are 
held personally responsible for the sins of generations five hun- 
dred centuries dead and gone. Essentially pure, the better part 
of each of us gets crusted with "Evil," and experience is the 
mill that grinds them all away. The most delicate and sensi- 
tive maiden will soon become contaminated, and her fine moral 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 31 

sense blunted, if exposed to the coarse and ribald society of the 
low and vulgar ; and so, too, these last become refined by frequent 
contact with those already so. As a tree falls so it must lie un- 
til it decays at is removed ; and as a man dies so is he until new 
influences acting upon, change him, gradually and always for the 
better ; because no one can grow worse in the upper world, — the 
thing is a sheer impossibility, and for this reason : Laws there 
are the works of Wisdom ; here they are the fungi of politics and 
party, prejudice and pretension, and have no more real justice in 
them than an egg has of prussiate of potash. All men's habits 
cling to them in esse when over on the other shore until outgrown. 
Hence it is not surprising that some of those who visit us from the 
other side prevaricate, lie outright, palm off their fancies for sober 
truths, frighten us, equivocate, and take us in after many ways and 
styles. Why is this? people ask; and to the question there are 
other replies than those above suggested, one of which is this : 
Disbodied, or rather ethereal people, of a lofty order, generally, 
but by no means universally, undoubtedly direct, in all essential 
respects, the great spiritual movement of the age. Individually, 
of course, there as here, such would scorn to tell wrong stories, 
and when wrong stories purporting to come from such are told, 
set them down to the score of the " Media," the imperfect chan- 
nels through which the matter flowed ; and for this reason alone 
one revelation of genuine clairvoyance outweighs in real value 
five hundred mediumistic ones. 

I have had an extended personal experience of both, and to-day 
regard every hour of my clairvoyance with pride and soul-felt joy, 
but I turn With loathing and horror from the bare recollection 
even, of my " mediumship ; " for each hour of clairvoyance was 
worth five years of mediumistic existence. 

Yet a demonstration of immortality could never have been had 
without the aid of mediums. The grand object of the people on 
the further shore was to convince us of our absolute deathless- 
ness, to do which they were compelled to avail themselves of all 
such means and agencies as have been in use since the grand 
movement began ; and while mediumship fulfils its office in prov- 
ing the fact of immortality, there its use is ended, for as a revela- 
tive power it is worthless ; while just at that point the value of 
clairvoyance begins. The better class of disbodied people were 



32 ATTER DEATH; 

forced to employ proxies far lower than themselves, just as archi- 
tects do hod-carriers and mortar-mixers, undoubtedly because such 
lower and grosser people are affinitively, perhaps electrically and 
magnetically, certainly chemically, nearer earth than themselves — 
hence better able to produce those sensational phenomena, which, 
while laughed at by the wise ones of the lands, nevertheless startled 
the world from its apathy, and utterly and forever revolutionized 
Mental Science, Philosophy, Theology, and Religion, — such oaks 
from little acorns grow ! 
f The agency of the higher class of disbodied ones ceases with the 
demonstration of human existence beyond the grave, and what- 
ever of lying and boasting that followed or follows thereafter, must 
be set down to. the private account either of spiritual, or vain-glo- 
rious, or half-demented mediums. 

These proxy-spirits, like others here, abound in gasconade, and 
are never so tickled and delighted as when obfuscating investiga- 
tors by representing themselves to be whom they are not. Hence 
it happens quite often that asserted mothers cannot rap out or tell 
their maiden names, date of marriage, or the number of their own 
children ; asserted fathers forget their own names ; Caesars are 
ignorant of Latin ; Voltaire unable to answer questions propounded 
in French. It is just as if a gentleman were to give his unlettered 
gardener orders to show visitors certain flowers, rare and costly, 
for which said gardener, to show off, might invent all sorts of names 
and stories concerning the origin, use, and nature of, when, in fact, 
all he knew of them might consist in that he hoed, watered, and 
tended them for his patron, who of course could not be held re- 
sponsible for the abnormal play of the ignorant gardener's love of 
approbation. The fact of the plant's existence would still remain, 
no matter how absurd the man's theories were. 
<* It is certain that the directors of the spiritual movement, from 
the other side, have, up to this period, mainly confined their 
efforts not to revelation, but to demonstration ; they have laid a 
solid foundation of facts, and on that foundation genuine clair- 
voyance is about to erect a superstructure of infinite use and 
beauty. The incomprehensible jargon that has so far accompanied 
the physical proofs of immortality must be credited to the servi- 
tors, not the masters. When people are reasonable and talk com- 
mon sense, they are to be credited, dwelling here. So with our 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 33 

disbodied brothers and sisters, who are but men and women like 
us, and as such liable to the same errors and obliquity of vision 
as ourselves, until they vastate it, and learn better. We may 
believe what they tell us or not, just as their tales accord with 
reason, or rather with common sense, which is the Genius of the 
People. But the bare fact that we are told anything at all from 
bej'ond the grave, incontestibly proves the existence of tellers. 
These tellers resemble us in all our mental, moral, social, and 
other qualities and attributes, which is the great point gained, 
and really all that we require at that stage of our researches and 
investigations, no matter if all we get from that source be mere 
badinage or falsehood ; for, remember only liars can lie, and every 
known liar, so far, has been — Man ! 

God is the name men give to the utterly impenetrable mystery 
surrounding them ; to that incomprehensible existence , which we 
cannot help acknowledging, but of which we are, and necessarily 
must remain forever to a great extent utterly ignorant. Were it 
otherwise possible ; were this one difficulty surmountable ; could 
we comprehend the mighty essence of Being, the Etre Supreme, 
the central Oneness, Almighty God, — we would cease to be Man, 
and there would be nothing more to acquire ; no higher knowledge 
possible of attainment, no fuller joy reachable ;*and what we call 
Change and Progress would cease ; stagnation and universal dis- 
gust immediately ensue ; Heaven reach a termination ; Time an 
end ; Eternity a full stop ; and grim, desolate Chaos come again. 
And all this, even if the Buddhistic doctrine be true, and man's 
final absorption and incorporation, — his eternal co-mingling into, 
and with God, Deity, Brahm, a central fact. 

I have an invincible conviction that God exists. I believe that 
on several occasions — the last on January 19th, 1868 — I have 
seen Deity ; beheld the centre of the boundless sea of universes, 
and gazed, appalled beyond utterance, upon the ineffable glory of 
the Lord of Lords ; and yet that transcendent intromission, that 
super-glorious view, left my soul in a deeper mist than ever, con- 
cerning Almighty God in Essence ; hence, I am led to ask, Why, 
at this stage of our unfolding, should we pester ourselves with what 
we have neither the developed cerebral organs to cognize fully, 
nor the mental power and muscle to comprehend or grasp ? Un- 
questionably, by and by, in ages ten or twenty thousand millennia 
5 



34 AFTER death; 

hence, there will arise an organ whose functions will be that of 
more clearly knowing what now the best of us merely glimpse. 
That organ will definitely settle this question of the God-head. 
It is but a mere mathematical point in me yet, or in Cuffee, or 
Carlyle. Let us trust God, and wait for a solution of his own 
enigma. 

At present man cannot comprehend, at any stage of his advance- 
ment, that which is greater than himself. So far in our history, 
God, if he exist at all, — as I believe he does, — has proved himself 
altogether past finding out, in essence ; albeit, in manifestation and 
operation, he is well-known, and everywhere, not only visible, 
but comprehensible. I define him to be our father, and something 
more. In other words, I conceive Mathematics to be the soul of 
Law, and God the soul of Mathematics. Electricity is the essence 
of Matter ; Magnetism the essence of Electricity ; Od the essence 
of Magnetism ; Ether the essence of Od ; Ethylle the soul or sub- 
limation of Ether ; Spirit the soul of Ethylle : Soul the crystalliza- 
tion of Spirit ; and God the supreme essence of Soul. Or, in 
briefer terms, Spirit is the soul of Matter, and God the soul of 
Spirit ; Mind is the basis of soul, and God the soul of Mind. 
Music I conceive to be the soul of Sound ; and God the soul of 
Music. The universe, to me, is the expression of Power, and God 
the foundation basis of the Universe — by which I mean the entire 
rain of starry globes now falling on the deep ! Goodness, to me, 
is the soul of Love, and God the soul of Goodness. "Man intui- 
tively, if not by reason, knows what I here write is true. He in- 
stinctively sees and recognizes these and cognate truths ; nor can 
he help acknowledging the universal God-ness, which is but Good- 
ness, in the loftier sense. By a law of mind, as well as by what he 
calls " Free Will " (forgetful that we and all our acts are but out- 
ward expressions of influences and conditions preceding and sur- 
rounding us all, and over which we have not the slightest personal 
control ; hence, that all sin is a dead letter, so far as soul is con- 
cerned, — a mere incident or chapter of accidents not worth men- 
tion or notice in view of the millions of ages yet before us, every 
hour of which will put an ocean between us and " Sin " and its 
consequences), man ascribes it all to a great, mystery, which, for 
want of a better name, he calls God, Deity, Light, — and he is 
right. God reigns victorious. 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 35 

I have read and listened to many descriptions of the Supreme 
One, but none clearer or fuller than the definition just given. At 
present I am incapable of understanding a better one, no matter 
if it occupies reams of paper, and I sum up all I have to write on 
that point in the following brief words : God is, to me, the first 
atom, — the primal, underlying essence, or substratum, of all con- 
ceivable existence. He is also the Over-Soul, and the cardinal 
points of all, and all Possibility ; the centre of being, and the 
focalization of every Positive quality, and their negatives ; the in- 
forming soul and essence of all Being ; dwelling everywhere, but 
most palpably in our tearful hearts ; is universal, impersonal, in 
the ordinary sense of Personality, yet is conscious at all points, 
and is the culmination, crystallization, and focal point of all ex- 
isting, or possible, substances, laws, and principles. Man lives « 
in all his body, but is central in the brain ; and just so God Al- 
mighty radiates through all existence, yet dwells in the heart of 
the Universal Brain, and {hat dwelling-place is in the centre of 
what I call the Deific Universe, which I have tried to describe in 
the first chapter of this work. 

At this point occurs this 

Question. — "Is there no other God than the 'Positive mind' * 
hinted at, and which the majority of mankind define as quite 
synonymous with Nature ? " 

Beply. — Doubtless there are millions of Gods, but they all de- <> 
pend upon and derive their existence from One . great and un- 
fathomable Over Soul ; one great and all-pervasive and pursuasive 
essence. In the light of revelation, I proclaim the existence of 
entire orders, kingdoms, empires, and republics of Gods : deriva- 
tive, not original ; personal, not universal ; local, not omnipresent ; 
powerful, not almighty ! 

There is but one universal basis,- and it must ever remain un- 
comprehended, in its fulness and essence, by any and all powers 
less than Itself. I affirm this in the light of a clairvoyance vouch- 
safed me, which was, and is, the result of untold mental agony, 
and long years of sorrow ; which has grown with my groans, and 
strengthened by my anguish, in a world where friendship is little 
more than a name, — a clairvoyance that dared to scale the ram- 
parts of Heaven, and which never yet shrunk from grappling with 
any question capable of being put into formula, and in its light, 



36 ATTEE DEATH ; 

I affirm, that in the ages yet to be, the men of this earth — one 
of the tiniest and poorest in the zone of which it forms a part — 
will reach such sublime heights, degrees, and grades of Intellectual, 
Personal, and Psychical development, that, to even a very exalted 
mind, they will infinitely surpass the most magnificent conceptions 
they now have of even a God ; yet that will be but the beginning 
of further unfoldings. But, while this will be true of men yet en- 
cased in the flesh here on earth, it will be as nothing compared to 
man's advancement in the aromal worlds above ; but here let me 
say, that the spiritual eminence alluded to will not be reached in 
the domain to which man goes immediately from this earth. It 
may not be attained while he is a denizen of, or hoverer around, 
this solar system, this constellation, or even this galaxy. But it 
will be reached in the culmination of centuries, by all of us, and 
to-day has been reached and surpassed in certain grand stages of 
unfolding, concerning which I have very much — not in quantity, 
but quality — to say, before my present task has been fully com- 
pleted. 

Question. — " If God, being all Goodness, fills and is the centre 
of all, of course, then, there is no such being as a devil ! What 
say you, sir ? " 

Reply. — To this question I answer YES ! There are thou- 
sands of devils here, there, and everywhere ! but no eternal Prin- 
cipal or Principle of Evil, individual or impersonal ! Evil is the 
Shadow, Good is the Light, and both are circumstantial ; man 
being surely destined to a career beyond all malign influences, of 
course vastates all evil, and as good exists only by contrast with 
the known bad, it is manifest that, when we shall have outgrown 
our inherited and circumstantial angularities, we shall bid eternal 
farewell to Evil, and our "Good" will be vastly different from 
what that term means to-day. I repeat : Evil is the Shadow, Good 
is the Light ; man and matter being the middle term, field or ex- 
istence whereon these twain act and operate, not for all time 
either, but only until man becomes truly civilized, — the glorious 
day wherein every female shall be a true woman ; every child be- 
gotten and born right and under right conditions, and when every 
man on earth shall 

^'Live, and bear, without abuse, 
The grand old name of Gentleman." 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 37 

"When I think of modern philosophers, who claim all the light, 
decency, and civilization of the world, and contrast them with the 
sublime sense of these two lines, I feel sick ! Why? 

Clear glass throws no shadow, for the light penetrates and 
streams through all its pores. Jus^t so pure and clear minds im- 
agine no devil, develop no evil. The notion of a personal arch- 
fiend, of the Miltonian, or any other type, is a pure barbarism, 
accepted only by cowards, fools, and barbarians, — not all of 
whom dwell in the Tongo Islands or in Timbuctoo. It is an idol- 
atrous notion, and idolatry abounds quite as much in Christendom 
as in the wilds of Africa, the difference being that some worship a 
Virgin Mother, aud s#me adore an anaconda ; some pray to 
Chow-chow-pow, and some to the Virgin's Son ; the latter class 
having a surplus of Christ on the brain, and not a drop of him in 
the heart — where lie ought to be! 

This notion of a Devil is Oriental in origin ; is childish, puerile, 
utterly contemptible ; belongs to the infantile stage of humanity ; 
is unworthy of man or manhood ; is invariably outgrown, like an 
old coat, as we advance, and is finally repudiated and cast aside 
forever, among the other shoddy remnants of our suckling days, 
and is never paraded except by shoddy preachers, who cannot ap- 
preciate the sound cloth of sturdy common sense and truth. But 
the notion is not half so much believed in by the ministers and 
priests who are paid to preach it, as some people would be 
led to imagine. The myth dissipates in the dawning light, because 
it is the fog of ignorance, the mist of Superstition, and necessari- 
ly dies and decays with their decay, and, like an old mile-stone, is 
ever left behind as we go marching on ! 
* Question. — " Of course, then, there is no such place as Hell? 
The fire and brimstone pit is a mere myth ? " 

Reply. — Yes, there are more hells than I am able to count ! 
The mind of every unhappy human being is a hell to him or her — 
and so are a great many of our badly organized bodies, too, and 
hells must be looked for beneath the hats, and over the shoes of 
the people round about us — perhaps beneath our own crowns. 
Hell consists in discontent, angularities, and pain, just as its op- 
posite does in contentment and pleasure. Mental, moral, and 
physical pain and disturbance constitute as terrible and bitter 
hells, while they last (which, thank God ! are but for short sea- 



38 AFTER DEATH ; 

sons) , as the most devout Christian brother could wish for, as a 
mete punishment for such " wretches" as refuse to " believe and 
be baptized." 

The writer of these pages, twice in his life, has been, by the 
treachery and lust of gold on the part of pretended Mends, rob- 
bed of his all, and left stranded on the shores of doom, the bitter 
agony of which was as dreadful a hell as he can imagine, for such 
was the mental pain that his hair turned gray inside of ten days. 
True, the dark hair came again, but the scars of their sabre-thrusts 
remain, and the memory of them will be fresh in his soul a thou- 
sand ages hence. * The wrongs iimst be atoned for, and there can 
be no pardon till they are. Thus, Hell ys an exchangeable series 
of conditions , — yours to-day, mine to-morrow. 

It may arise and exist from within, or without the selfhood. It 
may burn from the fires of remorse, or the stings of an outraged 
conscience. It may result from bodily fear, loss of property, be- 
trayal and ingratitude by and of so-called friends, or from blighted 
hopes and love ; and we suffer just as acutely if hell comes to 
us from external pressure, — is forced upon us, — as if from our 
personal act. All of us have a light and shadow side , — a sort 
of mixed angel and devil nature, which will cling to mankind un- 
til the race becomes so refined as to refuse all coarse conditions, — 
till the blood in its veins, no longer blood-feel, shall flow, not in 
red streams, and coarsely liquid through its channels, but shall, as 
it one day will, bound along white, clear, pellucid, and ethereal. 
That clay is coming, but it will not be here until the last priest has 
said his last mass ; the last gallows have rotted away in the de- 
serted yard of the last jail ; the last king have descended from 
the last throne ; and the last political party have finished its final 
caucus on earth ; when all wedded couples agree, make home a 
heaven, and interchange true-love courtesies on the emerald meads 
of Wife-and-Husband-land, — things that will probably be — some- 
where about " Anno Domini " 3000 ! 

* But there is another view of the subject. Hell, or Pain, be it 
of whatsoever nature, is, after all, to be regarded, and, if we can do 
it, be accepted, not as propitiary, but as disciplinary fire, burn- 
ing up the dross of passion and the senses ; purifying the genuine 
gold within us all. And j^et it is none the less dreadful for 
all that. Our capacity for suffering gauges our ability to enjoy ; 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 39 

and our hells arc the indices of our heavens yet to be. Our ex- 
istence here is a pendulum in motion. "We touch grief, pain, an- 
guish, and sorrow, as it swings, but only for a brief season ; for 
as we rise the swampy ground recedes, the world rolls on, and we 
never again fly over the same spot, because life and its incidents 
move in spiral curves. As it swings, the pain-realm sinks away, 
and we are forever free of that particular sort of anguish — what- 
ever it may be ; but that we shall ever find complete rest I doubt, 
and fervently hope not. Why, can easily be imagined. 

Heaven [Happiness] springs from right thinking and well-doing, 
to the top of our bent ; and the mythical Gehenna — the fanciful 
sulphur-pit, wherein we were told souls are to be broiled and grilled 
— [souls being fire-proof, too !] has ceased to inspire much terror ; 
and when we have all learned to do right, and practise it, all the 
other hells will be abolished forever, and forevermore '. 
t Question. — 4 ' If, sir, there is no universal hell for sinful 
wretches [people who do not believe as we do], — on what do you 
predicate the existence of a universal heaven ? Is there any local 
habitation for the righteous and redeemed ? or is there not ? " 

Reply. — First, in reference to the " Redeemed." 

"Captain," said an Irish sailor, "is anything lost whin yez 
know where it is ? " 

" Why, you fool, of course not ! " 

"Thin, bedacl, sur, the axe isn't lost, but it's at the bottom of 
the say, for it fell overboard forninst the last big wave that passed 
by the ship." 

The application is apparent. 

So also with reference to our own souls. If we have ever been 
lost, we have been easily found again. But we have neither been 
lost, found, or redeemed, — not even by " the blood of the Lamb." 
True it is, that the Romans, Jew-incited, killed Jesus, — a great 
shame to the scoundrels that did it ! — but that sad fact and act did 
not redeem mankind, for we have been cheating, lying, swindling, 
stealing, murdering, jailing, slandering, hanging, slaughtering, from 
that day to this, — pretty conduct for redeemed sinners, I trow ! No. 
We have ever been in God's universe, and there we shall remain. 
He understood his work, and did it very well indeed. He lives, 
rules, reigns, and governs yet, as of old : and hell and heaven — 
antipodes — are states and conditions, not localities or places. 



4v ATTJSR DEATH ; OR, DISBODIED MAN. 

* There are unnumbered myriads of local heavens beneath the hats of 
that number of individuals ; but, — and I predicate the assertion 
upon absolute personal knowledge, obtained during a career of 
forty odd years, during over thirty of which I have been more or 
less clairvoyant, — there are no such heavens as Christianized 
Pagan Mythology has endeavored to convince us of, — not one! 
There are spirit homes in abundance, but the people in them have 
something else to do than engage in one eternal psalm-singing. 
Nor do the inhabitants of these lokas tread on streets paved with 
gold. They have finer materials ! Neither do they thrum on gold- 
en harps, or worship any bleeding lambs. On the contrary, as a 
general rule, they employ themselves in the paying business of 
self-improvement ; in cultivating life's roses, minus the thorns ; 
and they sound the praises of Star-eyed Science, instead of tooting 
on golden horns, all the live-long ages ! Disbodied people are 
still rational beings, not idiots, and downright fools. Those of 
them who know, or have heard of, Jesus and other noble hearts, 
honor him and them, but do not worship other than the viewless 
God, — as sensible folks do here. They keep his commandments, 
by doing right, obeying the higher, and avoiding the penalties of 
the lower laws of being. In a word, heaven means personal hap- 
piness. It springs from the normal, healthful action of, not one, 
but all the faculties, qualities, energies, and powers of the woman 
or the man. Place a murderer, whose soul is burning with re- 
morse, in the midst of a happy, joyous circle, and still he would 
be in hell. Place a good man in the midst of a gang of rascals, 
and still he would be in heaven. They each would carry their 
states with them ; nor is it possible to run away from one's self, 
either here, or in the spiritual world or lokas. 



CHAPTER IH. 

THE RATIONALE OP GOING UP — MATTER'S IMMATERIALITY — ABOUT THE FIRST HUMAN 
COUPLE — EXTENT OP THE SKY — THE ORIGIN OP NEGROES AND OTHER RACES NOT 
IDENTICAL — THE GRAND SECRET OF THE AGES REVEALED. 

True there are, in the spirit lokas, special brotherhoods and 
societies, as the Foli, Neridi, Pythagoreans, Christians, and so 
forth ; and in some of these a peculiar art or science is taught and 
studied, and special ends sought, special joys cultivated. These 
societies not infrequently number many millions of members ; and 
to distinguish them, we will call them by the letters of the alpha- 
bet. Now all, within themselves, are happy ; yet transport a 
member of society A to society B or C, who are perfectly joyous,- 
but for whose studies, pleasures, occupations, or enjoyments the A 
man is not adapted, and in so far as he could not assimilate with 
them, he would be in a sort of hell, if forced to remain, while all 
around him might be enjoying a perfect state of heaven, because 
he was not in accord, not adapted to that state. He is out of 
place, and therefore is unhappy. 

Until July, 1866, I was an officer of the Freedmen's Bureau, in 
the State of Louisiana, which place I resigned to write the first 
edition of this work ; and my duties often called me into saloons 
where men played billiards, cards, and drank very dreadful, mur- 
derous whiskey, especially in a rum-hole, called "Belle Poule," 
kept by a mulatto dandy ; but I never yet entered their or its 
doors that my hair did not bristle with agony. It was not my 
style. I could not play cards, billiards, or gamble in any way, 
and consequently while I was inside those doors I was in unmiti- 
gated hell. 

Man's after life, being spiritual, may be allowed to rest from 
discussion awhile, while I, in behalf of sceptical readers, pro- 
pound a question that necessarily underlies, or at least, precedes 
it. That question is, " Can you tell me if matter is eternal, as. 
6 41 



42 AFTER death; 

spirit seems to be? Or, did matter have a beginning? and, if so, 
what, and how, and when, was its origin?" 

Reply. —4 Beyond all question, spirit existed alwaj's, in some 
form ; and matter is but a form, condition, state, or manifestation 
of spirit, which is the great substratum of the entire universe. 
Spirit is what ? Put mercury over a fire and you spiritualize it ; 
it escapes. Subject water to a white heat, and it becomes spiri- 
form. Spirit is the essence of matter, and like it, too, is graded, 
terraced, so to speak. Solid, fluid, and liquid substances are but 
so many forms or grades of spirit. Substance is but one phase of 
universal spirit. We see a lump of granite, and know that time 
and attrition will wear it down to sand ; sand will divide up until 
we have alluvial soil, out of which comes vegetation, in various 
degrees of refinement, from the coarse cryptogamia to the most 
splendid flower and delicious fruit. Were it possible to behold 
the procession of the Flora pass before us in one glorious pano- 
rama, we would behold gigantic ferns and grasses, flourishing in 
miraculous fertility for ages ; heavy carbonaceous plants, chemical 
laboratories of the first order, — extracting the grosser substances 
from the air and elaborating oxygen to fill their places. Pres- 
ently — ages having elapsed — they fall and rot, making new soil 
and richer, out of which comes a higher order of plants, — chemi- 
cal laboratories of the second order, — producing still more marked 
changes in the atmosphere and climate. Presently, as the picture 
unfolds, we behold orders, genera, and species succeeding each 
other at every tick of eternity's clock ; finer, fairer trees and flow- 
ers now deck the scene, and animal life comes in — as chemical 
laboratories of a still higher order. For if vegetation alone were 
adequate to the preparation of the earth, air, and waters for the 
abode of incarnate mind, there would have been no need of ani- 
mals, and there being no demand, there would have been no sup- 
ply. But vegetation could not do it ; nor could a single species 
of animal do it, but it required millions of species of differently 
organized animals to prepare the world for man ; to cook the air 
and cleanse it ; to purify the waters, and render them fit for higher 
uses, just as it required a million varied flora to throw down the 
noxious vapors, condense them into fibre, to be converted by and 
by into coal-beds and petroleum lakes, — just like the mighty bay 
of oil now underlying the parish of St. Martin's, La., and which 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 43 

branches off to Rapides, Vermillion, Lafayette, and Calcasieu, — a 
body large and deep enough to furnish fuel to the world for a 
century. 

Animals, feeding on vegetation, refine the matter ; these animals 
die or eat each other, — all steps in the great chemical processes, 
which still go on ; until at last, man appears ; he is coarse, rough, 
savage, uncouth, gross, dreadful, terrible to look at, — a rough 
diamond, — an uncut, unpolished koh-i-noor, of most magnificent 
proportions ; young, yet stronger than the winds, — for he was des- 
tined to control them ; unarmed by nature, yet monarch of all the 
animated globe ; small, yet able to " pull out leviathan with a 
hook," and hunt behemoth, till he roared with fright ; created 
with two good eyes, yet he complains that he can neither see as 
small things as a gnat can, nor so far off as the eagle ; and forth- 
with manufactures artificial eyes that enable him to outstrip both 
eagle and gnat, — for what is an eagle's glance to Rosse's tele- 
scope ? or a gnat's eye to the solar microscope ? Disgusted with 
his own legs as means of locomotion, the young giant impresses 
the camel and horse ; but after a fair trial, these are voted too 
slow, and he harnesses his teakettle to a rolling palace, and goes 
careering over the ground on iron rails at a hundred miles an 
hour. Discontented still, he sees the birds fly, and forthwith 
makes a bag, gets into a basket, fills the sack with gas he has just 
stolen from the waters, and away he sails through the air, in such 
grandeur and majesty that the eagles hide themselves for very 
envy and shame ! Is he content yet ? Nothing of the sort ! 
Steam is too slow, and so he employs the lightning as an errand- 
boy, and makes it bear his messages ! Contented now ? Oh, no ! 
for he now orders the sun to paint his portrait, and the sun obeys. 
He can even make it rain, if he thinks it worth his while. Now 
he goes down into earth's bowels, and brings up gold and gems ; 
to the floor of the sea, for sponge and pearls ; and having heard 
tell about — 

Deep the gulf that hides the dead ; 
Long and dark the way they tread; 

determines to look into the matter to see if it is true ; sets to 
work, and in a little time proclaims in triumph that the so-called 
gulf is quite narrow, and easily crossed ; that he has produced 
artificial death (magnetic sleep), and sent a hundred messages 



44 after death; 

and messengers to the other side, whence they returned in safety, 
bringing words of cheer, and strange good news from the people 
over there. He proclaims his ability to take a look at what's 
going on there, just whenever it suits him (by clairvoyance) , and 
he even prevails on some of the ethereal folks to cross the bridge, 
and perform quadrilles and " Sir Roger de Coverly " in his back 
parlor, with chairs and tables, for the delectation of his uninitiated 
friends ; and, Spiritualists tell us gravely, has even succeeded in 
inducing them to perform grand concerts in public, on an old 
trumpet, a cracked fiddle, and wrecked guitar, before a crowded 
audience, varying the performance now and then by poking out 
a half-dozen arms from the spirit land in bright daylight ! Once, 
quite scared at ghosts, he has them now for daily companions. 
Does he rest quiet yet? Not a minute ! Having heard of Jesus, 
he straightway examines his pedigree ; finds that Christ's father 
and his own were identical, and that neither was born of a virgin. 
At last accounts the name " God " struck upon his ear, and with 
a " Who's he? where? what?" is deeply bent on trying to find a 
solution to those weighty questions. What success he will event- 
ually achieve must be ascertained in the future years. And yet 
this man, this prodigy, is but a mere baby still, and living in a 
baby world. What will he do when fully grown ? • 

And so the circle is complete, — from spirit to granite rock, 
from granite rock to spirit. Matter has again returned whence it 
came ; but this time individualized, and perfected as to final form 
(not shape) and duration. 

Life is a fluid, flowing out upon the ether ; and it clothes itself 
with varied raiment ; one dress that it wears we call an ox ; an- 
other a lion ; but its gala dress is man. ^Absolutely speaking, 
there is no matter, but only varied forms of spirit.- If matter 
was actual in the stricter sense, we should be able to discover an 
atom or ultimate, indivisible, particle thereof, which, it is well 
known, we cannot do. If we take the hardest known substance, 
and subject it to the action of intense fire, we spirify it, and it 
eludes us by its rarity. Water thus treated, is changed, at the 
first stage, into wet steam, then into dry steam ; look sharp now, 
for you are converting it back to spirit, and spirit cannot be con- 
trolled when its temper is up ! Lo ! the next stage converts it 
into electricity ; the next, by a mere change of polarity, it is mag- 



OH, DISBODIED MAX. 45 

netism. Another change, and it becomes Von Reichenbach's 
" Od " — a very odd — force ; and the next stage it becomes Life. 
(This is the actual process within our bodies every day.) Within 
the body the next change is into nerve aura ; the next into ether, 
and the next into absolutely coalescent, indestructible, unparticled 
spirit, — that which constitutes the eternally-enduring vehicle of 
the thinking principle of man. [I am impressed at this point to 
affirm that even spirit in esse, like matter, is graded. Fuuther on, 
perhaps, I shall apply this principle to the soul, when I reach the 
analysis thereof.] Without the body this vast ocean of life, con- 
stantly being evolved from matter, flows off through the atmos- 
phere, into, and blends with, the cether of universal space. It is 
not stationary in itself, but is graded also, just as matter is. I 
shall recur to this subject again. 

It is thus seen that matter is but particled spirit ; and it is far 
less, quantitatively, than that whence it is derived ; for the mighty 
universe of material suns and earths, vast, and to us incompre- 
hensible in magnitude and volume, though it be, is, after all, but 
an insignificant little island, floating like a tiny bubble on the 
calm, unruffled breast of the tremendous, inconceivable ocean of 
SPIRIT. 

The whole vast domain of substance, as known to human vision, 
or the telescope, bears, in bulk, about the same relation to that 
awe-inspiring Sea, that a single cherry does to a vast orchard, 
loaded down with similar fruit ; or as an ear of corn does to a 
league-square field thereof on the prairies of Illinois, — and no 
more, scarce as much. If you doubt it, look out upon the sky, 
and see into what a small corner of the space before you every 
visible sun and globe could be packed ; and yet one of these 
globes — our sun — is eight hundred millions of times larger than 
our earth ; and some of the stars of the night are as much more 
bulky than our sun as this earth is than one of its own mountain 
ranges. The realm of matter is conditional, limited, bounded, 
circumscribed, floats on the edges of the vortex, — is, so to speak, 
cushioned on God's infinite and eternal breast! .Spirit — the 
iEth — is the white blood of Deity flowing through his veins. It 
constitutes the base and crown of all existences ; its motion is 
gravity, — the gravivic force of astronomers ; it fills all cavity, 
and it conditions both space and continued time, — which we call 



46 after death; 

eternity ; while matter simply, yet grandly, develops time limited, 
and what we call distance. There was when time was not, for 
there were no suns or planets, or other means of measuring dura- 
tion ; no revolutions, axial or orbital ; no alternations, risings, 
settings, transits ; hence no sequences, and therefore no time. 
When the mission of the present material universe is fulfilled, 
when the last globes have contributed to form the last man, then 
time will be no more again, until the new beginning ; but that 
beginning will exceed the last ! 

Question. — " What and where was the origin of the first human 
couple ? In your volume . concerning ' Pre-Adamite Man,' you 
have effectually demolished the Eden story ; and what you left un- 
done has been thoroughly accomplished by Luke Burke, the French 
and English geologists, Agassiz, Owen, and others ; but I want to 
reach an absolute starting-point of the human family per se." 

Reply. — In a former work of mine, of which this is the sequel, 
" Dealings with the Dead," pages 39 to 50, — the question so far as 
we of this world are concerned, is answered, but the question ad- 
mits of a vastly higher range, as you have seen proper to pro- 
pound it. 

If you look out upon the sky, on a clear night, through a good 
telescope, you will behold an enormous field or sea, dotted with 
starry flecks, visible to the unassisted eye ; but your telescope re- 
veals a thousand times as many ; increase its power twenty-fold, 
and your eyes will gaze on Eternity's floors, thickly strewn with 
star-dust ; while such an instrument as the Irish Rosse's will ap- 
prise you of the astounding fact that the grand and entire totality 
of all that you have hitherto beheld constitutes but a single point, 
— one solitary cluster, ring or belt of stars amidst unnumbered 
myriads of stellar clusters and astral zones. And yet telescopy 
is in its veriest infancy ; for before the century expires instruments 
will be produced, which, compared to that of Eosse, will exceed it 
in space-penetrating power as much as that one does an ordinary 
spy-glass ; and I look to the Astors, Vanderbilts, Weeds, Stewarts, 
and other millionnaires to order Science to produce such instruments 
— "and at their command Science will obey — so powerful is the 
Golden baton ! We already know that the bright belt that spans 
the heavens, and which we call the via lactea, or " milky way," and 
to which belt this, our solar system belongs, is but a single clus- 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 47 

ter of suns, and each sun surrounded by its family of planets, and 
eachjplanet producing its own specific order and genera of human 
fruit. The suns alone of that single cluster are myriads in num- 
ber, and what then must be the sum total of their planets ? 

Beyond that galaxy of suns, in the awful profundities of further 
space, such clusters are as plentiful as snow-flakes in a winter 
storm, leaves in the forest, or blades of grass on earth's green 
fields. Light, according to recent statements of investigators, 
travels quite two hundred thousand miles in one single tick of the 
clock ; yet the distance between some of these nebulous clusters, 
that look to be so closely huddled up together, is so great, so ut- 
terly tremendous, that light requires five hundred millions of years 
to bridge the awful chasm ; while a seraph riding on a beam of 
light could not cross the abyss that separates our cluster from oth- 
ers known to exist, in the multiple of that enormous period — not 
in years, but in centuries. And yet we know only of the outside 
edges of the material universe ! 

Our own astral system, one of myriads, is composed of some 
thousands of millions of blazing suns ; and each of those tiny 
flecks, that we see twinkling in the sky, is one of these suns ; and 
we have every reason to believe that some of them are not only 
larger than our luminary, but equal to the consolidated bulk of our 
entire solar fainiby. 

Again, every one of those suns is the centre of a series of plan- 
ets, few having less than ten, others as many hundreds ; and the 
majority of those planets are man-producing globes, similar to our 
own. The number of such solar systems would defy an angel's 
arithmetic ; while the sum total of the soul-producing planets of 
those solar systems would require a seraph's mathematics to com- 
pute. Consequently, for me, or any other man, to even attempt to 
answer the question " What and where was the origin of the first 
human couple ? " would be barefaced presumption ; would be to ar- 
rogate infinite perception and comprehension — God's prerogatives 
— • an absurdity — a simple impossibility. [See " Pre- Adamite 
Man," and " Dealings with the Dead," for various human origins.] 

Not so difficult, however, with reference to human beginnings oh 
this globe, this tiny world, this infinitesimal speck of God's uni- 
verse ; for we know how we originated here, and by parity of rea- 



48 AFTER DEATH; 

sorting can conceive somewhat how, but not ivhen, man came into 
being elsewhere. 

• On this earth the original protoplasts or autocthones, were the 
results of natural forces and refining processes steadily conducted 
through vast decades of, not centuries, but epochs ; and wherever 
the thing took place — probably in scores of localities simultane- 
ously — the first couple or couples were the crowning results of 
the great experiment. Indeed the development business is still 
going on, for there are not only gorillas and neschiegos that look 
awfully like a batch of men spoiled in the making, or not yet fin- 
ished, but we have men in South Africa who have not yet out- 
grown their tails, for tailed men have within these ten years past, 
been exhibited in several European capitals, — a most distressing 
fact to the Monogenesists and Adamites, and one that puts a broad 
grin of triumph on the faces of the advocates of the development 
theory of the author of the " Vestiges of Creation," and people of 
that ilk. 

The scientific, and a goodly portion of the reading world, have 
quietly given Adam the go-by, and are well satisfied that there 
must have been scores of " first couples," the pair of Eden having 
danced themselves away ; and when they went the " fall " and all 
that falls after it went too. We no longer believe that the proto- 
plasts, or first couple, whence sprung the Digger Indian, were the 
same who produced the mystical Aztec ; nor that the Aztec had 
the same first parents as did the red Indian or the swarthy sons of 
Peru. The first pair whence came John Chinaman, with his queer- 
looking eyes, were not the same whence sprang Phillis and Dinah, 
Sambo or Quashee ; nor did the " Pa" and " Ma," of the Caucas- 
ian tribes, produce the almond-eyed Kalmuck. 

Horace Smith, when gazing at one of Gliddon's Egyptian mum- 
mies, exclaimed : — 

" I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed, 
Hath any Koman soldier mauled or knuckled ; 

For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed, 
Ere Romulus or Remus had been suckled. 

Antiquity appears to have begun 

Long after thy primeval race was run." 

Two worthy sons of Auld Scotia were, once upon a time, cosily 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 49 

droning over a bowl of " Mountain Dew," anglice, whiskey punch, 
and begun disputing each other's pedigree and their respective 
lengths. Now Donald MacGregor had safely "bagged" fourteen 
centuries, as he supposed, in triumph ; when, to his utter amaze- 
ment, he was routed, horse, foot, and artillery, by Bailey Grant, — 
supposed to be distantly related to a famous Yankee soldier of the 
same name, — who, derisively smiling, exclaimed, as he struck the 
table with clenched fist, " Hoot, mon ! when the gude Laird was 
makin' Adam, even then the clan Grant was as thick and numer- 
ous as the heather on yon hills," — which, if true, as is not unlike- 
ly, the " hero of Vicksburg " comes of ancient stock indeed. 
» Seriously speaking, it is impossible to accept the accounts of 
human origin heretofore in vogue. We did not originate accord- 
ing to the Hebraic theories and statements. The sun never yet 
shone hot enough to tan a white man jet black, frizzle his hair, or 
change his nature ; nor did ever the cold blasts of the Caucasian 
hills or Lesbian mountains bleach a Hottentot white. On the con- 
trary, nature occupied long ages in refining stone to soil, soil to 
plants, plants to animals, animals to men ; and we citizens of earth 
are unquestionably but germs of mighty seraphs, destined to what 
stupendous uses ! Poor, despised, forlorn, forsaken, though I and 
others be, yet I know it cannot always be so, for, — 

" We hold a middle rank, 'twixt heaven and earth, 
On the last verge of mortal being stand ; 
Close to the realms where angels have their birth, 
Just on the boundaries of the Spirit Land." 

Briefly, nature, step by step, improved her work, developing, 
first, the general human form, — features, limbs, brain, — until at 
last she produced an organism too fine to draw all its supplies from 
earth, too coarse to inhale and crystallize pure ether. Then, im- 
proving on that experiment, a more perfectly developed physiolog- 
ical apparatus followed next ; it breathed in and incarnated a 
monad, in consequence of which gestation went one step further — 
was ^ prolonged another stage; anebwhen that youngling saw the 
light it was superior to either parent. Its organization, for the 
first time since animals had a being here, enabled it to exhaust all 
the finer essences from its nutriment, to crystallize aud refine it into 
nerve aura; at the same time it inhaled the blessed ether, and the 
moment that these two met within its body, limbs, fibres, that mo- 
7 



50 AFTER DEATH ; OR, DISBODEED MAN. 

ment they coalesced, became united in indissoluble marriage, and 
there was one immortal spirit in existence ! 

*• No one can tell the exact point, moment, or stage, that a boy be- 
comes a man. Nature has a sliding-scale. There are sensitive 
minerals, plants, and plant-animals, partaking of both natures. 
So also are there animals, rwmanes-ape-like, manlike, but not im- 
mortal. One step more, and we have man, who blends with and 
incarnates spirit till he becomes one himself ; then blends with as- 
cending orders, towering away to the ineffable beyond, forward 
forever ! The stone had motion ; motion — attrition begat life ; 
ascending life begat sensation, out of which grew intelligence, fol- 
lowed by reason, and resulting in intuition. " In the image of 
God created he him, male and female created he them." Omnis- 
cience is God's all-knowing ; intuition is man's much-knowing ; finite 
resemblance of an infinite parent. In essence man is spiritual, and, 
like God, had no conceivable beginning. Thus, then, I have an- 
swered the sceptic's question, in so far as it was possible to do so. 

Succinctly, the Spiritual Ocean is spirit positive ; the extracted 
spirit of food, drink, and air, is spirit negative. When an organi- 
zation was perfected capable of the act, then in that organism these 
two phases of spirit, produced a third, differing from both by reason 
of the fusion. This fusion was spirit individualized, a monad thrust 
into outer life ; the operations of which generated mind. The 
whole story is told ! And thus, and thus only, is it true, literally, 
exactly true, that, " He breathed into his nostrils the breath 
of life, and man became a living soul ! " Eureka ! Eureka ! 
I have found it ! The grand secret of the ages stands revealed ! 

The development theory is, therefore, as hitherto promulgated, 
substantially true ; literally so as herein set forth. Nature is in- 
competent to transmute a man from a monkey, gorilla, ape, nes- 
chiego, orang-outang, or any of the Simia. These were her failures ; 
man, her grand success. Nothing is more certain than that man 
came as here revealed ; nor, if we were all swept from life to-day, 
that she would, in time, reproduce the species, except that, the 
earth being now in a better and higher state, she would produce 
correspondingly superior types of the race. Although we know 
nothing about the history of man on other planets, still we are 
justified in the belief that the plan herein sketched of man's origin, 
is generally, the same elsewhere. 



CHAPTER IV. 

ANALYSIS OF A HUMAN SPIRIT AND SOUL — WHY IT IS PROOF AGAINST DEATH — SIN- 
GULAR DISCLOSURES ABOUT THE PARTS AND ORGANS OF A SPIRIT — THE SEX QUES- 
TION SETTLED — COQUETTES AND DANDIES IN THE OTHER LIFE — SPIRITS' DRESS AND 
CLOTHING — THE FASHIONS AMONG THEM — DO WE CARRY DEFORMITIES WITH US 
THERE ? — WHAT THEY DO IN SPIRIT LAND — THE SOUL, AND WHERE ITS SEAT IS IN 
THE BODY — IDIOTS, THIEVES, " STILLBORNS," CYPRIANS, MANIACS, INSANE, MURDER- 
ERS, MINISTERS, SUICIDES, WHEN IN THE SPIRIT WORLD — MONSTROSITIES — WHY HU- 
MAN BEINGS RESEMBLE BEASTS — A CURIOUS REVELATION — SOME STILLBORNS IMMOR- 
TAL — OTHERS NOT — WHY ? — " JUSTIFICATION " OF SUICIDE — CONSEQUENCES OF SUI- 
CIDE — HARLOTS EVEN THERE — JUDGMENT-DAY. 

Question. — " What, sir, is a human spirit ? What a human soul ? " 
Reply. — I have already partly answered that ; but in addition 
will say, it is a human form, composed of the materials already 
defined and indicated. It is, in other words, indestructible, be- 
cause it is constituted of the highest and finest essences of matter, 
held together by the highest law of the material universe, — the 
law of fusion. It is, to our vision, an invisible, indivisible being, 
shaped like a man, woman, or child, having head, feet, arms, hair, 
stomach, lungs, eyes, hands, legs, mouth, — a perfect human being 
both in mind and person. It has all the apparatus that we have, 
save that no liquids, but only aereal fluids, circulate through its 
vessels, are secreted by its organs, or imparted by its contact. 
There is no micturition or defecation there as here, because it 
neither eats coarse solid food, or partakes of fluid, the waste of 
which must be carried off through appropriate channels. 

True, there are functions performed analagous to those alluded 
to, in the lower stages of post-mortem life. There is no red blood, 
only a pure, white, or colorless electric current. The muscular and 
osseous systems no longer exist, as such, but what serves as such 
are batteries for the generation of a peculiar power applied in locomo- 
tion. An analogue maybe seen in the marrowless, air-celled bones 
of birds, and the air-bladders of certain fishes. By an effort these 
cells or bladders are filled or emptied as the animal wants to rise 

51 



52 AFTER DEATH ; 

or fall. So with the spirit. By the use and application of that 
which is thus generated, it can rise or sink at will, go straight for- 
ward or obliquely, just as it pleases, for the legs are not used as 
here, in going to distant points, although they are for short jour- 
neys, but even then more from the force of habit than necessity. 
The larger sacks of the body there become a sort of Leyden jars 
containing fluids, the like and nature of which do not exist on the 
earth. All movement is, so to speak, polar. It is very difficult to 
convey my meaning at this point ; but, perhaps, a notion thereof 
may be had if I say that every point, person, or thing in the Spirit 
World or elsewhere, has its particular, so to say, magnetic attrac- 
tion ; and in order to reach a given point, the man or woman there, 
by the exercise of one of its new-found powers, can and does ren- 
der him or herself negative to that attraction ; they rush through 
space with a rapidity almost inconceivable. By reversing the poles 
the return trip is as easily performed. I once asked a man how he 
felt when rushing through the ether ; and he said at first he felt 
the same curious sensation as makes a school-boy yell when " scup- 
ping " too high on a swing ; or as one feels when jumping from a 
haymow down below. Presently he got used to, and didn't mind 
it. The passage to and from the earth can be performed in two 
ways, hereafter to be explained. 

The people there, as here, do not go naked, because shame at- 
tends us on both sides of the grave. Dandies and coquettes are 
quite as fond of showing off their fine points over there as on the 
hither side ; and a neat and well-turned ankle is as much appreciated 
up among the live folks as down here among the dead ones. The 
clothing consists of fine, aerial, gossamer-like apparel ; can be had 
for the asking, and is fashioned to suit their own tastes or the fancy 
of others. Thank God ! clothes are cheap up there, for there are 
no tailors needed, nor is there a single milliner's shop, or dry-goods 
fiend to drive husbands and brothers to despair ; neither are there 
"loves of bonnets" to send a woman crazy or a man mad; nor 
Jews to deplete our purses, save only in that comparatively small 
region where phantasies and insanities abound. I said small, yet 
it is a large realm, save when compared to the grand divisions and 
sections of the magnificent belt comprising the entire Aidenn of 
the dead, of these nether globes. 

Teeth, in that land, are not to bite with. They help us speak 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 5'3 

and sing. They add to our beauty. Who had bad teeth here, or 
one eye only, or club feet, or doubtful eyes, find them all right and 
straight when they get there. 

There is no saliva in the better land ; no bile, virus, bodily dis- 
ease (save in the region above indicated), or deformities; no 
scars, supernumerary legs, toes, eyes, limbs, or fingers ; and no 
matter how crooked, maimed, hacked up, or misshapen one may 
have been here, he finds himself perfectly whole and sound when 
he arrives there, so far as externals are concerned ; and eventually 
becomes so mentally and otherwise — inevitably. Behold the 
little boy that was born with no legs ! See the girl with snake 
arms, or the double children ! Well, these have good spiritual 
limbs there ; only that in the womb, the spirit of the foetus not 
being able to clothe itself properly, did the best it could ; but the 
next birth will witness no club feet or deficient limbs. — Thank 
God for that ! 

Memories are perfect there ; and occurrences mark duration as 
here ; albeit there are no alternations of day or night as we know 
them here ; still there are magnetic ebbs and flows that indicate 
seasons of rest, study, and enjoyment. People there are not un- 
natural, simply because they have escaped from their earthly 
prisons ; nor are they all psalm-singers either ; for there is as much 
(and more) wit, drollery, and fun among them, as here. 

In the spring of 1854, there died in New York, a celebrated 
Methodist parson, who no sooner got to the better country than he 
went to singing, and shouting, and disturbing people generally, for 
he wouldn't stay among the people of his church, but must needs 
go about fiddling and harping in search of the " Lamb ;" but he 
didn't find him. Being met by a friend ten j^ears afterwards, he 
was asked why he wasn't as zealous as of yore? " Oh," said he, 
" that's all nonsense ! I have hung my harp on a willow-tree — 
and there it may stay till the crack of doom, for all I care ! " 
"Well," said his friend, " that shows progress ; but what are you 
doing now?" " I am taking my first lessons in practical Christian- 
ity ; unlearning my follies, and helping on the great rebellion clown 
below." "Indeed, and which side are you on?" "I'm on the 
Southern side, and have trained a large number of persons to go 
down to fire up the Southern heart!" "Why?" "Because 
whom God would destroy he first makes mad ; and the more en- 



54 AFTER death; 

raged I can make them, the sooner will human slavery topple in- 
to its grave ! " 

People sleep, dance, sing, and give parties, and make merry ; 
court and marry in the upper lands ; and on the lower belts and 
outer circles they quarrel, fight, have lawsuits, trade, buy, sell 
and barter, as of yore ; while from these lower planes vast multi- 
tudes of topers, hasheesh and opium eaters, and tobacco-users, 
flock earthward to establish magnetic concordance with others of 
like ilk in the flesh ; as do frequenters of brothels, pugilists, and 
rowdies, Methodists, Baptists, Dervishes, actors, enginemen, and 
jugglers, and other sensuous people, whose attractions ai'e so 
strong toward the scenes of their earth experience, that they not 
seldom wish themselves back, and to wish so is to be there. 

Do not forget my definition of a human spirit ; for on a clear 
understanding of it depends your knowledge of that which is to 
follow. I, therefore, ere launching out upon the broad and mag- 
nificent ocean of truth, the shores of which we are rapidly coasting, 
repeat the definition : A human spirit is necessarily indestructible, 
because it is the very quintessence of matter held in absolute 
coalescence by the highest and most absolute force in nature, 
under God, — the Lex Suprema, — the law of fusion. Man's 
body is fibrous, liquid, granulated. No two atoms thereof touch 
each other ; but the spiritual, or rather the ethereal, body is a sub- 
stance homogeneous — that of this earth-form heterogeneous . It is 
an essence, tenacious, indivisible — one. No liquids enter into its 
composition, nor solids, but only fluids, aeriform, for not even the 
rivers of that fair land are liquid, nor are any of the human 
" secretions " or " excreta." Thus the spirit. 

Now, a human soul is a different thing. It is the thinking, 
knowing principle in man, and dead or alive, it has its seat and 
throne in the centre of the head. Soul may be defined thus : As 
being the final and supreme crystallization of substance or spirit, 
as that is the final sublimation of matter. In the human spirit all 
essences find their culmination ; in the soul all laws and principles 
are focalized. 

Question. — "Are any human beings non-immortal? and if so, 
what ones ? What becomes of all the" idiots, stillborn children, 
abortions, maniacs, thieves, harlots, murderers, hypocritical 
preachers, all other criminals and suicides ! What of monsters ? " 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 55 

Reply. — Here are vital questions to be responded to ; and, 
1st. As to idiots. All human beings born with perfect heads 
are thenceforth deathless in the higher sense, and that, too, not- 
withstanding the intellectual spark may be so extremely dim and 
flickering as scarcely to be perceptible. A Cretan or full idiot 
labors under a physical, and very seldom a psychical disadvantage. 
The same reasoning applied on a former page to the maimed or de- 
formed is equally applicable here. No man can work with his 
hands tied, nor without proper tools. When an idiot exists, it is 
not that he has no spirit, but because some physical obstruction 
has either prevented his soul from locating at the proper point in 
the brain, — if the head be well shaped, — thus preventing the 
spiritual forces from their due circulation through the cerebral or- 
gans ; or else the foetus has not been able to collect sufficient of the 
right kind of substance from the mother whereof to build up the 
right amount of brain in the proper spot in the head. Hence the 
low foreheads we often see. But understand : If, in the process 
of gestation, that office be suspended or arrested, or deflected at a 
point where the brain has not ascended beyond the animal plane, 
then there can be no personal immortality for that creation. Every 
observer must have noticed, more or less, the marvellous resem- 
blances between certain persons and various animals, as the hawk, 
eagle, lion, wolf, cur, bull-clog, cat, weasel, monkey, tiger, snake, 
vulture, rat, and others. Well, all this means much more than ap- 
pears upon the surface. 

2d. It is an indisputable fact of the science of embryology, 
attested in thousands of instances, that the human being, in utero, 
is at first but a mere point of jelly, — and so were the first forms 
of animal life upon this globe ; then it assumes a reptilian out- 
line, — a tadpole-looking thing, with a large point and a small 
one, — a sort of compromise between fish, lizard, and snake. Who- 
ever has visited a hospital where this science can be studied, 
has verified these facts over and over again ; and there are old 
women — nurses — who can attest them easily from their personal 
observations. The foetus now rapidly passes through a series of 
strange mutations, successively resembling bird, beast, and simia 
(apes), until finally the strictly human plane is reached, and 
more or less strongly marked ; and if the mother understands her 



56 AFTER DEATH; 

business, it is in her power just as easily to produce a giant of 
mind as an intellectual pigmy ! 

Now if the foetus dies before it has reached the strictly human 
body, it dies forever, and its monad escapes, because it requires the 
chemical and other properties of the human body to properly 
elaborate the human spirit and fashion it for eternity. But if that 
human shape be reached before it dies in the womb, then that is a 
true child, and is, of course, immortal, for it, though weak, sur- 
vives the physical death, and is taken and cared for by those gentle 
ones from the other side who have the love of babies " large." 
[See page 47, Dealings with the Dead.] 

3d. No matter how idiotic a child may be, provided it has two 
halves to the cerebrum and cerebellum — however small the former 
may be, it will live beyond the grave. For this reason the pro- 
curation of abortion at any stage of foetal growth is murder ! En 
passant, I will answer another of your questions, and say' that 
monsters, if such be possible, with only one human parent, are not 
immortal ; nor is an entirely brainless thing, although both its 
parents be human. 

4th. Maniacs, lunatics, the insane. These, like other sick 
people, are specially provided for, and nursed back into health 
and soundness in some one of the many sanitoria of the sunny 
shores of Aidenn. But there are various kinds of madness. 

(1st.) A person may, from causes operative antecedent to his 
birth, come hither with such a peculiar cerebral conformation that 
it will be impossible for him to think right on any given subject. 
Such soon get sound ; for they will speedily get rid of all their 
transmitted or inherited disabilities of that sort, if those disabil- 
ities result from physical causes. One insane from a blow on the head 
belongs to the same category as the last. (2d.) There are others 
whose insanity is the result wholly of psychical causes : — loss of 
property, remorse, violent passion, disappointed affection, un- 
answered longing for love ; insanity — the worst — produced by 
a crime against self, denounced in Genesis ; personal excess ; the 
love of gold, ambition, too profound study too long continued ; 
the madness that follows the offspring of cousins, or other forms 
of incest ; that from religious excitement, — these, all these, are al- 
most invariably long sufferers in the spiritual realms ; and there 
are maniacs there of two centuries' standing. Indeed, there are 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 57 

societies, millions strong, without a sane man or woman among 
them, except those whom a merciful code of laws provides to care 
for and to cure them. , 

5th. Murderers — God help them ! — and criminals of all sorts 
and degrees, if not utterly debased, are still (and in any case) re- 
gained as human beings, and treated as such, in the upper country. 
Murder is mainly done when a man is crazy ; rarely when he is 
sane. When there is one of the latter sort, he generally is for a 
long time incorrigible ; and, instead of trying to become better, 
grows desperate daily. 

Within a few miles of where I wrote the first edition of this 
work there lives one Pierre Bergereaud, a planter, who, before the 
war, regularly tortured his slaves for amusement. He would bury 
pregnant women to their waists, and then flog their shoulders and 
breasts till they were raw. Scores have died under the lash ; and 
in more than one instance has he put negroes in an oven and roast- 
ed them alive. Well, it will go hard with such a wretch for many 
a long century, because he must expiate Jiis crime. No one can be 
happy there who is unforgiven by the victim, and some victims 
have very long memories, and are hard as adamant to be softened. 
Conscious crime — crime that could have been avoided — tells 
heavily against a man hereafter, because like any other well-rooted 
disease, it has distorted the man, who must grow morally straight 
ere he can be happy ; and to do that requires time. An evil deed 
wholly the result of organization, of an inherited abnormal bias, 
is an illness, and not always a purposed violation of the man's 
moral nature, for that frequently lies dormant until some tornado 
or earthquake of the soul awakens it from its slumber. 

There is no need of a brimstone hell, even on the supposition 
that a soul could — which it cannot — be burned with material 
fire ; and you might just as well attempt to scorch a shadow as to 
singe a spirit. For the flames of remorse, shame, loss of self- 
respect and that of others ; the consciousness that everybody 
knows you to have been a villain, swindler, thief, or murderer, and 
that you are avoided (until reparation is made) by all the good 
and pure, is itself a hell of ten thousand degrees of fervent heat ; 
and just as the spirit is higher, finer, and more sensitive — more 
keenly alive to pain than the mere body, so is the hell of a man up 
there worse than even the fanciful Gehennas of Gautama Buddha 



58 after death; 

or the last new Methodist parson. It is supremely dreadful, and 
there's no escape from its inflictions. Talk about wishing for 
rocks and mountains to fall on and crush you ! Why, when a 
man is fanged by the relentless lashes of remorse, up there, he 
would exchange situations with the most tortured soul in brimstone 
hells, were that possible, and give a myriad of years to boot. 

There is a class of people there, who, when here, were mastur- 
bators and Onanists, whose agonies are so dreadful that I had 
rather endure the punishment for murder than their torture. It is 
fearful beyond description ; and the only hope such can have of 
happiness when there, is to fully break and cure the habit here : — 
a task not half so hard as. the poor victims imagine, but one 
which if not done, entails misery so dreadful, that death by fire 
were preferable thereto. 

Reader, just as certain as that God lives, are these words very 
truth ! Many of those who suffer most up there, are suicides. 
But there are grades of even these. Those poor French, and in- 
deed, other girls, and some men and children, who shuffled off life 
from disappointed love ; from loss of friends ; from penury, — those 
who rushed into the other world because they could find no loving 
arms in this, — are immediately taken to a proper sanitorium and 
tenderly cared for until they are well again ; until the lost is found ; 
the friendship discovered, and the yearning, loving heart, meets its 
holy desire. These are all fine-strung people, in whom love, not 
passion, pulsed and thrilled. Such have endured their hell on 
earth ; and yet they suffer in another sense : — 

1st. The painful consciousness that they have infracted one of 
the highest laws governing the universe, . — that of self-conserva- 
tion. No one, it matters not how fearful be their misery, has a 
right to, or is justified in, suicide. The fact that they have done 
so is patent to every inhabitant of Aidenn, — every citizen of the 
upper country. They can neither hide it from themselves or 
others. True, friends endeavor to conceal their knowledge of, but 
the individual can never forget it. True, they become eventually 
happy, but it will be a long time before they can think of it with- 
out a shudder. 

2d. No one has a right to shrink from duty ; and our duty is to 
suffer — if we can't help it ; and be strong — or at least try to be. 
We were born to die ifaturally, and when the measure of our years 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 59 

t 

is full. If we are hurried out by war, murder, accident, or dis- 
ease, while in our prime, we shall lamentably fail to be what we 
might have been, had we lived on till old age gave us up to God 
and death ; but if purposely, and by our own act, we rush on to a 
plane of being for which we are unfitted, then our law-imposed 
sentence is that we must hover about the earth ; learn all we can ; 
make our lean souls fat with knowledge ; and our moral natures 
plump, by the good deeds we do to embodied people, in various 
ways ; from the awakening of the sense of immortality, by noises 
made and feats performed ; cautioning some wrong-intender in a 
dream, or otherwise ; prompting, subtly, some sensitive to good 
deeds ; suggesting noble thoughts, comforting some poor mourn- 
ing soul ; frightening the murderer from, or warning his intended 
victim ; to thundering God's gospel into the ears of the multitude, 
through the brain and lips of some medium. In this way must the 
balance of the time be passed until that day in which your bodily 
clock would have naturally run down, had you not, by suicide, 
have snapped the cords asunder. 
r. You have asked, what becomes of the harlots? This question 
covers a great extent, and embraces a great many people, — more 
than perhaps might be suspected. Now, it seems to me, there 
would be none such were there no patronage ; and I do not hold 
the woman more guilty than the man. I think these people do 
wrong ; but they are not to be damned, for all that. I can tell 
what became of one ; and Jesus might tell what happened to 
another, — one Mary Magdalen. Attend ! Let me carry you 
back, two thousand years, to* a scene enacted upon the stony 
heights of Calvary : — 

"Eloi! Eloi ! Lama Sabachthani ! " groaned the dying Christ, 
as he hung upon the cross to which he had been tied and nailed by 
the " chosen people of God," yet who coolly swore away the life 
of an innocent man, and one of the best the earth had ever pro- 
duced ; but he groaned only to be mocked and derided, even at 
the awful moment when the terrible death-agony swept in relent- 
less pain-billows over his quivering frame and rack-tortured nerves. 
And even thus, " My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me ? " 
comes up through many a pallid lip, comes welling, surging up 
from many a poor giii's heart, as she feels and realizes that she 
stands tottering upon the brink of some terrible danger, ready at 



60 AFTER death; 

a touch to topple over the verge into a gulf of endless misery — 
and the fright and agony are none the less real and fearful in that 
she is the victim of an old and idle superstition, and has been 
taught to value her perishing body at a great deal higher price 
than is set upon her viewless and immortal spirit. Put this is the 
fault of the past, that the present will check, and the future en- 
tirely correct. Yet she feels all the horror possible, while her 
"lover" (?) — picture it, think of it, her lover — stands pleading 
with her against herself, and does not fail to rack the logic of 
hell, heaven, and earth, for argument, wherewithal to carry his 
point, ruin her, and put out another light. "Ah, my God !" she 
cries, " what shall I do? " and then, poor thing ! unable longer to 
withstand the triple tide and storm of passion, love, and impor- 
tunity, she bows her head upon his shoulder, and yields to what 
she was wholly unable to resist. Well, the pure, dear, delicious, 
tender-hearted world says she has "fallen;" but I say, by the 
eternal truth of God, that the " world" lies ! for not one fleck of 
dust hath fallen on her soul, to mar its immortal beauty here or 
hereafter, as she roams down the sylvan glacles of Jehovah's star- 
ry islands. Siu, if there be any, is a transgression of our moral 
nature; is a thing of soul; and in "falling," that poor child's 
error is justly chargeable to the tempter, not the tempted. It 
is him who danced, and somewhere, at some time, he is bound to 
pay the music, not her. Something might even be said for him, — 
especially in view of the fact of his age, the age, and the social 
falsehoods of the era. All " sin " is the result of bad conditions ; 
when these are removed, all badness will go also. As for the 
" devil," whom all Christians so belabor, I'm sure I cannot see but 
that he is their best friend, for what would priests and parsons do 
for bread, suppose the people should suddenly find out that Luci- 
fer was all smoke, and should burst into a universal guffaw at dis- 
covering how they had been " sold"? 

Once there was a woman of the town who nursed me into health, 
when all the world forsook me. And again, in 1865, another, 
whom I had taught to read and write, heard that the terrible fever 
that ravages New Orleans, where I was, had stricken me down. 
It was true ; and of all the hundreds, white and black, whom I 
knew in that city, only she, and a poor old black servant of hers, 
offered the slightest assistance. Again was I saved by a "bad 



OK, DISBODIED MAN. 61 

woman." When the pestilence recently scourged Chicago, I be- 
lieve, or some Western city, the most tireless, faithful, generous 
volunteers at the bedsides of the sick and needy were these self- 
same outcasts from society, and I never yet saw or heard of one 
of them whose heart was not soft and tender, and hands ever open 

*to relieve genuine suffering and distress. But I 'have seen many a 
high-born lady turn the starving beggar from her door, and shrink 
with holy horror from even distant contact with God's suffering 
poor. Out on such, I say. Let us give even the devil his due, 
and forget not that souls — not their shells — are immortal ! 

Once again in my career, I became acquainted with a young 
woman, who had been " deceived " by a married member of a 
church in Western New York — " deceived " By the agency of her 
own toothache and his chloroform. Part of the facts leaked out, 
because they could not be hidden ; she was expelled from the 
church (where sinners ought to be saved), and hooted from the 
town and State by the elders of that branch of Zion ! was driven 
to the heartless metropolis, there to rise, if she could, — at sewing 
shirts for ten cents each, — or to sink into a hideous walking pesti- 
lence, if she could not. She had no money. Board was three 
dollars a week, and by eighteen hours' of hard daily labor she 
could manage to earn two dollars and a half ; her rascally employer 
offered to make up the balance " on conditions." She refused ; 
was turned out upon the wintry street, and then — ah, then ! 
Well, it is the same old story of forced error. 

One clay, they told me a woman was dying. I went. Lauda- 
num ! — Stomach-pump ! I saved her, and learned her story. Be- 
hind her lay as pretty a prattling crower of four months as ever 

, my eyes had seen ; and to me both mother and child were as pure 
and unsullied as spotless snow. Would to God that I had been 
half as good as that poor, tender, wayworn, and suffering soul, — 
so true, so forgiving, so noble at heart, and so aspiring, yet so 
sensitive and wretched ! And yet, had the world heard the tale 
she poured into mine ear, as the hot tears of her telling fell thick 
and fast upon the floor, and there mingled with the tears of my 
manhood's hearing, doubtless that chaste and holy world would 
have said she was impure, not virtuous, with more unco' righteous 
cant of the same sort ; and why ? Because she had loved both 
wisely and well, — just like God is said to have done, — loved her 



62 after death; 

child so well that she freely sacrificed herself upon the altar of 
shame, that it might live and not die of starvation and cold. A 
God could do no more ! And yet there are hundreds of similar 
cases ; and no one can tell the deep agony concealed beneath the 
flaunting colors and tawdry smile of the courtesan. 

The chloroform practitioner wiy have a long bill to settle just as 
sure as heaven smiles above us ! I listened to the tale, and cursed 
the hypocrisy of a Christian world, and " civilized society," which, 
with a vast deal, — whole mountain ranges of "preach," and 
" talkee, talkee," has so very little practice. Now when, as it 
does, society affirms such a woman not virtuous, and that, too, of 
the loftiest order, I again tell it that it lies ! for if the word virtue 
(a moral attribute) means anything at all, it means the intent 
to be and do good ; to give it and receive it. Many a woman, 

like poor Maggie S , is compelled by poverty to submit to 

things — most infamous wrongs, and crowds of them — from which 
she instinctively recoils in horror — both in and out Of "mar- 
riage," in exchange for current coin, or what it will bring. Fool- 
ish men think, in both cases, that they have bought her. Sad 
mistake ! She has rented her cloak, she not being therein at all ; 
and I apprehend there's no more virtue in a cloak than in a fila- 
ment ! 

Well, after listening to the woman's story, I went home and to 
bed, pondering on the general subject ; and, as is usual when my 
spirits are at ebb tide, soon felt the soothing magnetic waffcings of 
my dear departed mother, or some other ethereal one, who knew, 
and, therefore, loved me. We are all loved when we are really 
understood, — and I was quickly transported on the fleet pinions 
of the Sleep-Angel to the happy Land of Dreams. Awaking 
therefrom, in the middle op the night, lo ! there came a wonderful 
change, vision, and experience. I was in the spirit ; my soul was 
free. A divorce, temporarily, had taken place between me and my 
earthly body ; and up, up, up, will-borne, in a thought-shallop, 
through the star-flecked azure, I sailed, until I reached the roseate 
Plains of Vernalia, in the Golden Morning Land, and, stepping 
forth, took my stand hard by a shining gate, near which stood the 
veiled Judgment-Seat of the Infinite, Eternal, Over Soul, and my 
spirit was wrapped in clouds of awe. Soon, a mighty voice said, 
" Sound the Trumpet ! " and straightway the chief of the Antar- 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 63 

phim blew a blast, and instantly ten million echoes awoke the still- 
itudes of the vast universe, with the startling summons, "Arise, 
ye dead ! and come to judgment ! " and then I trembled, for I 
knew that many a " sin " had left sad marks upon me ! that, having 
been thrice robbed of all I had on earth, by black-hearted, pretend- 
lied friends, I had, in my agony, bitterly cursed them, and consigned 
all my foes to eternal perdition ; and now, albeit I had forgiven 
all these wrong-doers, was yet doubtful of a speedy and safe 
deliverance. While thus standing, and calculating the chances 
whether I, or those who had been the cause of all my trouble, and 
most of my sin, would be eternally damned, I suddenly beheld a 
vast spectral army, — all the dead nations, marching up to where 
sat the Recording Angel, with the Book. 

Presently, the Emperors, Kings, Princes, Generals, Popes, Car- 
dinals, troops of Priests, Ministers, Lawyers, Judges, and Phi- 
losophers, — wise and otherwise, with cohorts of Editors and Re- 
porters, Critics, some of whom had not been bought, marched up, 
full of confidence, as if their toll were already paid, and essayed 
to pass through the Golden Gate into the pearly meads beyond. 
But in this, to their intense astonishment, they were foiled, for the 
Voice, in tones of thunder, said, " Stand back ! The weakest 
first ! " And so they filed away to the right hand and the left, 
• and stood back, and made way for a crowd of world-weary souls, — 
unfortunate authors, slaves, beggars, and many a poor thief! And 
as these went tremblingly up, the Angel selected the feeblest and 
most woe-begone, asked their name, ran his eye over the Book till he 
found them, and then, with a " strong in purpose ; weak in exe- 
cution by reason of circumstance ; " or, " victim of conditions ; " 
" erred from external pressure ; " " sinned by reason of physical 
disease ; " " went astray from the influence of hereditary bias ; " 
" foul without, but pure within," ordered the servitor to swing 
wide the Gates of Glory, and bade the mournful throng pass in, 
which they joyfully did forthwith, to the infinite surprise and dis- 
gust of the aristocratic philosophers, and others of the lofty ilk, 
who could scarcely credit their senses as they beheld the scene, 
and looked as if they would like to have appealed from Almighty 
God's decision, if they but knew how ; yet, nevertheless, they had 
to submit, but with a very ill grace. 

I now began to understand how and why Deity is no respecter 



64 - AFTER death; 

of persons, and that in his sight hearts, not purses, souls, not 
position, carry the most weight in the scales of Justice, and the 
Court of Heaven ! 

At last came the woman, Maggie, " the fallen one," with whom 
I had conversed, and whose touching story I had listened to. 
Against her name, in the Book, were the words, "prostitute, — by 
the force of circumstances;'" upon reading which the Angel wept, 
and his tiears fell upon the page, and on the words there written. 
Presently, the seraph turned toward her, and as he did so, his 
sleeve swept over the page, his own tears, and the record of her 
sin, and the words were obliterated from the Book, and when he 
again looked at the writing, it had disappeared, — wiped out by 
angel tears ! 

She safely passed the ordeal, and was bidden, with her babe, 
"bastard" though it was called, to enter through the Grate ; but 
she would not, and could not, by reason of a fine, but very strong 
silken cord, called " Sympathy," that bound her to me ; seeing 
which the Angel said, and smiled, while a tear glistened in his eye, 
" Pass in along with her, for it is written against your name in 
this Book of Life, ' Even as ye did it to the least of these, my 
servants, ye have also done it unto me ; ' " and so I entered the 
blessed glades of celestial glory. 

I entered the Gate of the Golden Country, when, lo ! I saw that 
the woman at my side still loved the man to whom she had given 
all that woman can. And she went to the top of Heaven's battle- 
ments, and gazed afar off to the surging seas of the world she had 
quitted forever, and there, upon the wide waste of waters, she be- 
held, and I, too, the ship on which sailed the man that had be- 
trayed her ; and methought his name was Thomas Clark, and his 
lot in life had changed since he ruined and deserted the poor girl. 
All, all was strangely altered, and he found himself tossed on the 
rough, tumultuous sea ; his lot was cast upon the deep — upon a 
wild and weary waste of waters. . . . The rain — great 
round and heavy drops of rain — fell in torrents ; the mad winds 
and driving sleet — for the rain froze as it fell — raved and roared 
fiercely, fitfully ; and the good ship bent and bellied to the hurri- 
cane, and she groaned, as if loth to give up the ghost. And she 
drove before the blast, and she plunged headlong into the foaming 
billows, and ever and anon shook her head — brave ship ! as if she 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 65 

knew that ruin was before her, and had determined to meet it as a 
good ship should — bravely, fairly in the face. I have } r et to dis- 
believe that every perfect work of man — ship, watch, engine — 
has a semi-conscious life of its own, — a life derived from the immor- 
I tal soul that gave its idea birth, — for all these things — these ships, 
watches, engines, are ideas, spiritual, subtle, invisible, till man hides 
their nakedness, with wood, iron, steel, brass, — the fig-leaves of 
the Ideal World. Some people cannot feel an idea, or be intro- 
duced to one, unless it be dressed up in matter. Sometimes we 
lay it on paper, or canvas, and draw pencil lines around, or color 
it, and then it can be seen ; else we take one, and plant it out of 
doors, and then put brick and iron, marble and glass sides to it, 
rendering the spirit visible, and then the good people see the Idea's 
clothing, and fancy they behold the thing itself, just as others, 
when looking at a human body, imagine they behold the man, the 
woman, or the child. A mistake ! None but God ever beheld a 
human Soul, and this it is, and not the body, or its accidents, that 
constitutes the Ego. 

And the ship surged through the boiling seas, and her timbers 
strairjed and cracked in the combat, and her cordage shrieked as 
the blast tore through, and the torn sails cried, almost humanly, — 
like a man whose heart is breaking because his wife loves him not, 
and all the world for him is robed in mourning, — and they cried, 
as if in deadly fear ; they were craving mercy at the Storm King's 
hands. He heard the cries, but he laughed "ho! ho!" and he 
laughed " ha ! ha ! " and he tore away another sail and hurled it 
in the sea, laughing madly all the while ; and he blew, and he rat- 
tled, and he roared in frightful glee ; and he laughed " ha ! ha ! " 
and he laughed " ho ! ho ! " as the bridegroom laughs in triumph. 

And still the storm came down ; and the yards bent before the gale, 
and the masts snapped asunder, like pipe-clay stems, and the bil- 
lows leaped and dashed angrily at her sides, like a trained blood- 
hound at the throat of the mother, whose crime is being black, — 
chivalrous, well-trained blood-hounds ! And the waves swept the 
decks of the bark, — swept them clean, and whirled many a man into 
the weltering main, and sent their souls to heaven by water, and 
their bodies to the coral caves of ocean. Poor Sailors ! The Storm 
King's wrathful ire was roused, and his fury up in arms ; and the 
angry waves danced attendance ; the lightning held high revelry, 
9 



66 AFTER DEATH; 

and flashed its applause in the very face of heaven, and lit up the 
night with terrible, ghastly smiles ; and the sullen growl of dis- 
tant thunder was the only requiem over the dead. It was night. 
Day had long left the earth, and gone to renew his youth in his 
Western bath of fire, — as we all must, — for death is our "West, — 
and the gloomy eidolon usurped Day's throne, arrayed in black 
garments, streaked with flaming red, boding no good, but only ill 
to all that breathed the upper air. And the turmoil woke the 
North, and summoned him to the wassail ; and he leaped from his 
couch of snow, with icebergs for his pillow, and he stood erect' 
upon his throne at the Pole, and he blew a triumphant, joyous 
blast, and sent ten thousand icy deaths to represent him at the 
grand tempestuous revel. They came, and as the waters leaped 
into the rigging, they lashed them there with frost-fetters ; and 
they loaded the fated ship with fantastic robes of pearly, heavy, 
glittering ice, — loaded her down as sin loads down the transgressor. 
. . . And still the noble ship wore on — still refused the 
bitter death. Enshrouded with massy sheets and clumps of ice, 
the good craft nearly toppled with the weight, or settled forever 
in the yawning deep ; for despite of her grand endeavors, — her al- 
most human will and resolution, — her desperate efforts to save 
her precious freight of human souls, — she nearly succumbed, and 
seemed ready to yield them to the briny waters below. Lashed 
to stanch timbers, the trembling remnant of the crew soon 
found out, while terror crowned their pallid brows, that the tor- 
nado was driving them right straight upon a rock-bound coast ; 
foaming and hopeless for them, notwithstanding that, from the 
summit of the bold cliffs, a light-house gleamed forth its eye 
coldly, cynically upon the night, in mockery lighting the way 
to watery death and ruin. Steadily, clearly it glimmered out upon 
the darkness, distinctly showing them the white froth at the foot 
of the cliff, — the anger-foam of the demon of the storm. Ah, God ! 
have mercy ! have mercy ! . . look 3 r onder, at the stern of the 
ship ! What frightful gorgon is that ? You know not ! Well, 
that is Death, sitting on the taffrail. See, he moves about. 
Death is standing at the cabin door ; he is gazing down below, 
looking up aloft, gazing out over the bleak, into the farther night. 
See ! he is stalking about the deck, — the icy deck, — very slippery 
it is, and where you fall you die, for he has trodden on the spot. 



OR, DISBODIEH MAN. 67 

Ah, me ! ah, me ! Woe, woe, a terrible woe is here, Tom Clark ! 
Tom Clark, don't you hear ? Death stands glamouring on you ! 
Hark ! he is whistling in the rigging ; he is swinging on the snap- 
ping ends of yonder lodsened halliards ; if they strike you, you are 
dead, for they are whips, and Death is snapping them ! He is 
calling you, Tom Clark ; don't you hear him ? — calling from his 
throne, and his throne is the tempest, Tom Clark, the tempest. 
Now he is watching you, — don't his glance trouble you? Don't 
you know that he is gazing down into your eyes ? How cold is his 
glance ! how colder his breath ! It is very, very cold. Ah ! I 
shiver as I think — and Death is freezing you, Tom Clark ; he 
is freezing your very heart, and turning your blood to ice. . . . 
And the vessel drove before the gale straight upon the cliff. All 
hope was at an end ; all hope of rescue was dead. There was 
great sorrowing on board that fated barque. Heads were down- 
cast, hearts beat wildly, ears drank in the mournful monody of the 
scene, and lo ! the strong man lifted up his voice and wept aloud. 
Did you ever see a man in tears, — tears tapped from his very 
soul ? God grant you never may. . . The strong man wept ! 
the very man, too, who, a few brief hours before, had heaped 
up curses for trifling reasons, upon the heads of others ; but 
now, in this hour of agony and mortal terror, he fell upon his 
knees in the sublime presence of God's insulted majesty ; there, 
lashed to the pump, trembling in his soul's deep centre, he cried 
aloud to Him for — Mercy! God's ears are never deaf ! At that 
moment one of His Angels, Sandalphon, the Prayer-bearer, in 
passing by that way, chanced to behold the sublime and moving 
spectacle. And his eyes flashed gladness, even through his seraph 
tears ; and he could scarcely speak for the deep emotion that stirred 
his angel heart ; but still he pointed with one hand at the pros- 
trate penitent, and with the other he placed the golden trumpet to 
his lips, and blew a blast that woke the sleeping echoes through- 
out the vast Infinitudes ; and he cried up, cried up from his very 
soul: "Behold, he prayeth!" And the Silence of the upper 
courts of Heaven started into Sound at the glad announcement. 
There is not only the difference of a species, but of an entire or- 
der, between a formal and a soul-sent prayer. " Behold, he pray- 
eth ! " And the sentence was borne afar on the fleecy pinions of 
the Light, from Ashtoreth to Mazaroth, star echoing to star. . . . 



68 AFTER DEATH ; 

And still the sound sped on, nor ceased its flight until it struck the 
pearly Gates of G-lory, where was an Angel standing, the Re- 
cording Angel, writing in a Book ; and, oh ! how eagerly he penned 
the sentence, right opposite Tom Clark's name : " Behold, he 
prayeth ! " and the tears — great, hot scalding tears, such as, at 
this moment, I am shedding — rolled out from the angel's eyes, so 
that he could scarcely see the book, — mine own eyes are very dim, 
— but still he wrote the words. God grant that he may write them 
opposite your name and mine, opposite everybody's, and every- 
body's son and daughter, opposite all our names. "Behold, he 
prayeth ! " And, lo ! the Angels and the Cherubim, the Seraphs 
and the Antarphim, caught up the sound, and sung through the 
Dome ; sung it till it was echoed back from Aidenn's golden walls, 
from the East to the West, and the North and South thereof ; un- 
til it echoed back in low, melodious cadence from the Veiled 
Throne, on which sitteth in majesty the Adonai of Adonim, the 
peerless and ineffable Over Soul, the gracious Lord of both the 
Living and the Dead ! . . . And there was much joy in the 
Starry "World over one sinner that had in very truth repented. 



I saw the catastrophe, in this dream that was not all a dream. 
I saw the soul of the man saved by the prayers of the woman he 
had so deeply injured, and I awoke, convinced that a sin against 
the pure love of the soul entails upon the transgressor penalties 
of a fearful kind. How many of us have them to pay ! 



You have my answer as to " What becomes of harlots ? " Of 
course I deprecate their existence, as does every well-wisher of his 
race, as well as every other social, moral, religious, or political 
evil. But I won't throw stones, and have never yet seen the man 
who could fling the first one ; and I know that every harlot was 
once as pure as your sweet child, or mine, ay, and will be so again, 
up there in the starry sky where God's Justice rules, and not falli- 
ble man's prejudices and passions. Besides, I happen to recol- 
lect that two parties' are essential to adultery, and one must be a 
male, not a Man altogether, but a mere " He ! " 

No woman ever sinned alone, but was hurled down by what 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. G9 

looked like, but was by no means, a Man. Real men never do 
these things ! Woman may be to blame, but not all the fault is 
hers. If she loved not, she would have stood ! We can and do 
talk glibly of the folly of yielding to temptation, who have never 
been tempted. Oh, the beams in our eyes ! and oh, the motes in 
our neighbors' ! 

While on this general subject I will here remark that all the 
aberrations in the matter of love, in this our world, come from 
blindness, ignorance both of ourselves, each other, and the 
principle of love itself. This will not always be so, and would 
not now were not our bodies corrupt from head to heel, with 
diseases transmitted to us from a thousand centuries ago. Not 
only are our bodies in this condition of radical impurity, but 
we have inherited all the moral and mental angularities of our uni- 
versal ancestry. If this be so, — and who can doubt it ? — what 
wonder that love and marriage are anything else than what they 
should be? None at all! Just so long as we feed, drink, live, 
and move in the world as we do, just so long will happiness be 
the exception and not the rule, as is the case to-day. I have else- 
where said, and here repeat, that love lieth at the foundation, and I 
hold that his or her chances for speedy happiness bej^ond the .grave 
are in exact proportion to the love developed in them here, for a 
bad love is better than none at all. At present magnetic and pas- 
sional attraction takes the place of genuine love, and it will be so 
just as long as we subsist on blood-inflaming food, and deify lust 
and imagine it love. In the starry homes of freed souls on the 
further shore, love is the very first lesson we begin to learn ; and 
it were well if we began here. There are Sanitoria in nearly all 
the grand divisions, where those unfortunates who have loved 
vainly, — yearned for just a little true human love, and have been 
met with brutal passions, — bridleless lust, — are nursed into 
affectional health and strength. I hold it impossible for a bad 
man to truly love, and equally so for a man who truly loves to 
be bad. Love elevates ever and always, and it is only lust that 
debases and destroys. 



CHAPTER V. 

ABE ANIMALS IMMORTAL ? — THE ABSORPTION-INTO-GOD QUESTION SETTLED — PHANTOM- 
OSOPHY — A WONDERFUL SPIRIT POWER — ITS RATIONALE — RATIONALE OF DELIRIUM 
TREMENS — A SINGULAR FACT — HOW THOUGHTS ARE READ — THE EXPLANATION OF 
MEMORY — A NEW REVELATION — GENIUS — A NEW FACULTY — ANIMALS OF THE 
SPIRITUAL WORLDS. 

Question. — " Are all or any animals immortal? Are there any 
animals in the upper land ; and if so, whence and what are they ? " 

Reply. — To the first interrogatory, I emphatically answer, so 
far as my knowledge and experience goes, not one! I do not 
know how extensive have been the investigations of Swedenborg 
and more modern seers ; I can only say that I have been more 
familiar with spiritual realities, for many years, than with things 
of earth. The faculty of independent seership was born with me ; 
and bitterly, bitterly have I regretted it ; for mine has been a 
lonely, dreadful existence in consequence of that hereditar}^ pos- 
session. I have been forced to live and labor in a world for which 
by birth I was wholly unfitted ; and to earn my bread without 
knowing how. Hundreds of times people have said, "Randolph, 
if I had your powers, your genius, your oratorical and literary 
abilities, I would give half my life and all my property ! " and I 
have invariably replied, " You would lose by the exchange. If it 
were possible to get rid of this power, I would do it at the sacrifice 
of everything on earth. But it cannot be done. Then came other 
psychical phases, which I assiduously cultivated, — for I could not 
help it, — cultivated these strange faculties ; have tried to fathom 
all mystery, and succeeded in some cases ; but never did I hear 
of, or see, an immortal clog, cat, or any other animal ; and while 
analyzing the principia underlying human psychology, have neces- 
sarily deeply studied that of animals, whom I found non-immortal, 
for the reason that they are not high enough in the scale to elabo- 
rate from matter the indestructible essences which enter into the 

70 



AFTER DEATH; OR, DISBODIED MAN. 71 

composition of the spiritual body of man. We know nothing of 
all nature, only so much thereof as pertains to our earth ; and so 
far as our earth alone is concerned, all nature exhausts her re- 
sources in perfecting the human machine, or rather, chemical ap- 
paratus, whose function is that of distilling matter and elaborat- 
ing spirit. The process begins in utero, and ends in the grave. 
It is accomplished by and through the chemical, mechanical, elec- 
trical, galvanic, and magnetic apparatus, man's various organs 
operating on what he eats, drinks, inhales, and absorbs. The liver, 
lungs, heart, pancreas, spleen, brain, nerves, stomach, intestines, 
nostrils, solar plexus, the ganglia, and sexual apparatus, — all these 
are so inany agents and vessels wherein meat, bread, fruit, air, 
water, electricity, magnetism, and all other substances and fluids 
are clarified, refined, crystallized, and fashioned in the human form 
or shape, and that form or shape appears to be that which the man 
himself is to wear through all the future ages. 

Once, when en rapport with a vast brotherhood of learned Budd- 
hists, of the better land, they taught, and I believed, that there 
would come a period when man would be so pure and perfect 
as to lose his identity, and be swallowed up in G-ocl, — be absorbed 
into the great Brahm, a component of whom he would then be- 
come. Somewhere, in one of the many books I have written,, that 
idea has place. I forget the order of the argument, but remember 
that it was based on the assumption, that whatever originated in, 
and started on its elliptical orbit of existence from, must neces- 
sarily return to, God. The reasoning was fallacious, because an 
ellipse has two, and not one single point, — two foci. They can 
never approach each other. A yawning and impassable gulf eter- 
nally and forever keeps them apart. Man is at one focus of this 
tremendous ellipse, God is at the other ; and the ellipse itself is 
law, — the principles of existence ; they move, are, and act from 
God, on man, and bind the twain together. But it was a long 
time ere I reached the sublime truth I have just penned. I now 
believe in our continued existence as humans, — in ascending orders 
and hierarchies ; and this from reason, < — from a clear comprehen- 
sion of known principles, and because my conclusions are corrobo- 
rated and sanctioned by my tutors, — men of Morning Land, 
possessed of immense stores of knowledge on this recondite sub- 
ject. 



72 AFTER DEATH ; 

Beasts, being but secondary chemical vessels, perish at death. 
True, we all have heard of the ghosts of dogs and birds ; and 
phantoms in those shapes have most undoubtedly been seen ; but 
such are phantoms only. For instance, no. truer thing was ever 
written than that statement of the great Swede, that thoughts have 
forms. Proof: Take a good mesmeric subject, and, although you, 
the magnetizer, may never have seen a ship, a Turkish mosque, or 
spotted tiger, although the subject may be as unwise as you on 
those points, yet, when in the slumber, if you think of those things, 
the subject will not only see, but will describe them, each and all, 
minutely. 

The thoughts have shape ; the objects seen are phantoms. Thus 
an animal, dog, or bird, is loved by a man or woman ; still they 
die ; but when dead, the ideas of them still exist — forms of love- 
thought — in their respective owners' minds. Now, with those 
images in your mind, you ask a seer, " Do you see my pet in 
heaven?" The answer is "Yes!" and no wonder, for you have 
just that moment sent the image there. Nor is it any more easy 
for the seer to distinguish between the reality, and the shadow, 
than for you to tell whether the figure you see in a large mirror, of 
whose existence at the other end of the cabin of a steamer you are 
ignorant, is a man or his reflection, until experience shall have 
taught you better. Again : In this world, we can project or put 
our ideas upon paper or marble. By the aid of concaA r e mirrors 
we can project a figure upon the air so perfectly that one would 
swear it was a real person standing there, and not a mere image. 
Such things are often clone at the London Panopticon ; and we all 
remember the theatrical " ghost excitement" imported therefrom a 
few years ago. In the spiritual country new powers of mind are 
developed. Here Ave can build castles in the air, but, unless we 
describe them, they please none but ourselves. There, on the 
contrary, they can be, and are, made visible to all who choose to 
look ; and the exercise of this power affords boundless enjoyment 
and amusement to myriads of people. Here a lecturer must either 
illustrate his subject by skilful word-painting, or resort to dia- 
grams or the panorama. There, however, he can produce the 
scene upon the air, so that all can see and understand ; and, in 
consequence, the schools there are rather better than we find them 
here. There, our ideas can be, and are, visibly projected ; they 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 73 

become externalized creatures of our wills, deriving their life, their 
all, from our love, and remaining objectified subjects thereof as 
long as that special love is dominant. What then shall hinder me 
from having my dog Ponto ? What shall prevent my Cora from 
still having her pet canary? 'In the upper country the law of 
supply and demand is a great improvement upon its action here. 
When seers behold appearances of well-known beasts, they may 
rest assured that they are beholding phasmas ; and were they to 
look well about them they would often see the person from whose 
mind they were projected. Of course, these phantom pets are not 
the same as those on earth ; neither are they, in any sense, the 
souls thereof. These loves are projected oftentimes unconsciously, 
and the disbodied person may believe, and through rapping-tables 
tell us, that they really have their pets with them. It is well known 
that here we are often subject to spectral illusions, so finely illus- 
trated in Warren's " Diaiy of a Physician." A person was haunted 
by a large yellow dog. The phenomenon resulted from some compli- 
cated disarrangement of the organs of love, memory, and imagina- 
tion, operating through a disturbed retina. The same disease in 
another form is the creating cause of the mice, rats, snakes, and devils 
of delirium tremens. There is another arcanum just here. There 
are general as well as personal and special projections from and of 
certain portions of the spiritual zones, divisions, communities, and 
brotherhoods. Here our architects, engineers, artists, are com- 
pelled to build upon their ideas or out-creations, in coarse material, 
— stone, wood, iron, canvas, glass, and paint, before they are 
generally perceptible. How we often wonder at our unuttered 
thought being read and spoken by some seer or disbodied person ! 
Many attempts have been made to solve the mystery without suc- 
cess. The theories have been too far-fetched. As usual, men 
have looked away off, when, in fact, the solution lay right before 
their ej-es, and is as simple as the day is long. Remembering that 
thoughts are things, — have tenacitj*, coherence, and life, — that 
they are real entities, — the rest is perfectly plain. When a thought 
is forged in the furnaces of the soul, we are not apprised of it ; for 
the soul works on the other side of consciousness, and we are 
ignorant of what has been going on, until the thought itself, as 
complete as the unpractised soul could make it, passes across the 
field of consciousness. Then we know it, see it, hail it ; but we 



74 AFTEK death; 

are not conscious of building it up piecemeal ; we only know that 
we desire to have a certain piece of unknown information. The 
thought at such a point is an m-creation ; when we project it 
before our faculties, and view it, it is an oirf-creation. All an 
architect has to do is to first photograph his thought well upon his 
memory ; then place it where he wants it, putting stone, brick, 
mortar, glass, paint, and so on, to the sides, bottom, top, and in- 
terior ; in short, clothe this spiritual idea with material habili- 
ments, and lo ! your palace stands revealed to the gaze of the world. 
Well, every thought conceived comes from the deeps of being, so 
to speak, — a thin, filmy picture, from the very centre of that myste- 
rious fiery globe in the centre of the head, to which allusion was 
made in my "Dealings with the Dead," pp. 167, et seq. This sun 
of man, this seat of power, constantly exists as a point, of greater 
or less dimensions, within the centre of a globe less bright than 
itself, and on the walls of this outer globe the soul-forged pictures 
pass, and, as matter is pervious to the sight of spirits and some 
clairvoyants, nothing hinders them from seeing these pictures, and 
reading these thoughts. But neither these images, nor those that 
come to us from the outer world, through sight, sound, touch, hear- 
ing, or emotion, are lost ; for when they have passed before the 
soul's outer eye, they depreciate in magnitude, and enter into cells, 
and remain there for longer or shorter periods, until, like a photog- 
rapher's negative plate, they can no longer subserve the ends of 
use, whereupon they dissipate and are forever gone. This is the 
rationale of memory. 

The scenery of the upper worlds is, in a great measure, the ex- 
ternal projection of the general, popular mind, and the loftier are 
the people, the finer are their surroundings ; just as here a barba- 
rous man merely tills the ground for what food comes from it, while 
the polished and aesthetic man projects pleasure-grounds, conserva- 
tories and splendid gardens. It is the same law operating under 
different conditions. The greater, and therefore the more misera- 
ble, is a so-called " genius" here, the more marked is the work of 
his half-dozen abnormally expanded faculties ; for genius is ever 
a crooked, unmanageable crab-stick, angular and full of sharp 
points, often, nearly always, meaning well, but almost as invari- 
ably stumbling headlong into ill. So of the Spirit Land. In the 
lower regions, Where to some the general view is angular and 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 75 

cheerless, it is no uncommon thing to behold isolated specimens 
of the most magnificent out-creations, architectural, artistic, or 
otherwise, — like a diamond breast-pin in a beggar's shirt-front, 
or a pearl jewel on a blackguard's finger. But the higher the 
general mind up there, the more varied, simple, yet ornate, lovely 
and beautiful is that out-creation ; wherewith it surrounds itself, 
and is environed by that mysterious directing, silent, but omnipo- 
tent power called God, but who is really as unknown in those 
spheres, as in Booraboola Gha, except that no one denies its exist- 
ence, because the evidences thereof, as here, are too palpable and 
clear. Human likes, dislikes, and tastes are everywhere depend- 
ent upon organization and circumstances. A band of freebooters 
would here delight in gloomy forests and dark caves, contiguous to 
some well-travelled high-road, and not too far off some well-stocked 
locanda or cabaret, abounding in good wine and maidens fair of 
non-resistant principles. A crew of pirates would exult in a long, 
low, black schooner, capable of putting the wind's eye out on a 
bowiyie, and of showing her teeth to an Indiaman, or her heels to 
one of your crack steam iron-clads. Artists would luxuriate in 
fine landscapes, fair grounds, toppling cascades, and something 
good to eat. Poets would prefer love in a cottage, not too re- 
stricted, generous wine, and in the members of the Mutual Admi- 
ration Society ; while people of a different make-up would sur- 
round themselves with magnificent grounds and palaces, something 
after the style of Poe's " Domain of Arnheim," or Calvin Blan- 
chard's unique conception of earth after the expiration of what 
he so justly called the " Dismal Ages." In the Spirit Land we 
fall, plump and square right into the very place we like best. If 
alone, why, then alone. If otherwise, among the people best 
suited to us. True, we may get into some region of phantasy, or 
find ourselves in a sanitorium or a school ; or we may have to join 
some earth-visiting Missionary Society, bent on civilizing the 
civilizees, or converting Christians to Christianity, cleaning the 
insides of the platitudinous platters. Still we will like the place 
and the work, whatever it be, and take to it as web-footed animals 
take to water. Moreover, as every useful thing or knowledge is to 
be had without too much trouble, and none of this clinking cur- 
rencj'-, why, we live quite cosily and comfortably, and just as our 
longing souls desire ; and this fact, be it known, constitutes 



76 ATTER death; 

Heaven, — simply the dwelling in the arena of harmony, and there- 
, fore, in the bonds of peace. Even Presbyterians are measurably 
happy, blue, as they are said to be, — but wrongly, — for they are 
decidedly green, — for a while. All things leave their imprints 
behind them in, so to speak, the great memory-cells of the uni- 
verse ; hence, whatever has been can be known, and will be (to 
some extent already is), by the exercise of a now-developing 
faculty, whose function it is and will be to read these so-called 
" scrolls of oblivion." Man, universal man, will yet defy the 
power of forgetfulness, for he will dive into the darkest caverns 
of the past, and, with a few bold strokes, triumphantly swim every 
Lethean sea ; make every grave give up its dead ; recover the 
" lost arts," and prove history to be something more than biog- 
raphy. 

This is already — "already" did I say? I forget. This has 
been known millions of years by some of the myriads on the 
father zones ; and is in that pertaining to our own system. For 
instance : a lecture is there announced ; subject, — Zoology ; and 
the speaker alludes to a megalodon and an icthyosaurus, — pristine 
beasts of earth, about which none of the hearers know anything 
whatever, save that they once existed. But the lecturer now wills 
that they shall know, and lo ! straightway the lemur, or eidolon, 
of the beast, stands revealed before them, just as the ship or 
mosque did before the interior eye of your mesmerized subject. 
The thing appears just as do the phantom dogs and birds, and by 
virtue of the same laws of projection and universal memory ; and 
the congregation are at full liberty to examine the wretch to their 
hearts' content, — and they do so. 

I may here say, en courant, that there are a great many more 
" radical " and other passions in the human soul, than either Owen, 
Fourier, Prodhon, Professor Buchanan, Gall, Fowjer, or even 
"William Fishbough — the greatest thinker of them all — ever 
thought or dreamed of. And it is equally and also true, that every 
thing or animal is the external symbol of something mental, intel- 
lectual, moral, sensational, affectional, or spiritual. Indeed, this 
truth is generally and practically believed ; for we all, more or 
less, admit that the dog symbolizes constancy, the ant faith, the 
spider patience, the partridge courage, the bull strength, the hog 
indolence, the bee indusfe^, the fox cunning, the horse nobility, 



OK, DISBODIED MAN". 77 

the tiger ferocity, the sheep innocence, the peafowl vanity, the 
turkey pride, the cock lust, the clove love, the gazelle beauty, the 
elephant generosity, the ass contentment, the mule obstinacy, the 
hyena deceit, the snake malignancy, the ostrich cowardice, the 
wasp anger, and so on to the end of a very long list. . Well, all 
these types and many others are occasionally seen in the upper 
globe and better country ; not as real existences, but as forms pro- 
jected and mirrored on the air, for the purpose of illustration, — 
" to point a moral and adorn a tale." But besides these protean 
and phantasmal forms of things that were, and are still here, there 
are others indigenous and pertaining to the other world ; for indeed 
it were a poor land if all the animated beings there were strictly, 
wholly, solely human. No ; there is a fauna and flora, too, of the 
Morning Land, transcendently beautiful and interesting. And I 
am inclined to the opinion that whoever wrote certain Arabian 
tales of singing trees and laughing waters, talking birds and sensi- 
ble plants, must have caught a glimpse of some of the startling 
realities of the upper land, and whenever hereafter in this work I 
speak of animated forms, let it be understood that I mean real, 
actual animals, unless treating specially, and naming, phasmas. 



CHAPTER VI. 

VERY STARTLING QUESTIONS AND THEIR ANSWERS — RELATIONSHIP IN HEAVEN — THE 
AFFINITY QUESTION SETTLED — IS DEATH PAINFUL ? — DEATH BY HANGING AND 
DROWNING — THE SENSATIONS THEREOF — EFFECT OF BAD MARRIAGES — FATE OF 
DUELLISTS, SOLDIERS, EXECUTIONERS — THOSE WHO DIE OF FRIGHT OR HORROR — 
- DRUNKARDS — OBSESSIONS — THE FATE OF GENIUS, AND ITS ORIGIN — CRIME-ENGEN- 
DERING DANGERS — HAUNTED PEOPLE AND HOUSES — A CURIOUS CAUSE OF MENTAL 
SUFFERING — MUSIC OVER THERE — WHY DO PEOPLE MARRY OVER THERE? — REPLY. 

Question. — " Will, or can you, tell me concerning relationships 
in the other world? Shall we meet our parents, wives, children 
and friends ? Is the process of death painful ? What is the effect 
of bad marriages here, — upon us there ? What is the fate of 
soldiers, generals, and other leading executioners? What of those 
who died of fright ? What is the effect of habit ? Perverse will ? 
The fate of genius, and its origin ? Is there music there ? Why- 
do people marry there ? what the effect of suffering here, — over 
there?" 

Reply. — As to " relationships : " So far as our common origin 
is concerned, we are all brothers and sisters. It is blood and 
physical birth that constitutes relationship in this world ; but the 
mere ties of consanguinity go but a little way in the other one. 
Indeed, men and women are often more closely knit and bound to 
strangers than to the children of their own parents. Affinity of 
psychical constitution, mental habitudes, or a common love, ambi- 
tion, aspiration, and aim, constitute the real relationship here and 
hereafter. 

I have already said that love rules in the sky, and if that love 
prompts you to seek the man who begat, or the mother who bore 
you, why, all you have to do is to will yourself in their presence, 
and you are there. But if there be no stronger tie between you 
than that of physical parentage, the renewed acquaintanceship 
will not be of long continuance. 

People there are graded, not by outside pressure or enacted law, 

78 



AFTER DEATH? OR, DISBODIED MAN. 79 

but by the higher law of love, affiuitucle (or similarities), common 
aspiration, moral and intellectual development, and refinement, 
and organizational tendencies and peculiarities. If your relations 
are in these respects like you, they will be graded, and dwell in 
the same region, with you ; but if not, then not. Nearly every 
one at first seek out their parents, relatives, and friends ; their 
children and acquaintances. If not in the same grade, then for 
a while a visiting intercourse is established, which, there, as here, 
depends for its duration on mutual attraction. When that ceases, 
the acquaintance drops, or is exchanged for those that are more 
congenial. 

Is death painful? If by a disease that racks the nerves, yes ; 
but the agony is short. If b} r a bullet in the head or other vital 
part, no ; for you are numbed instantaneously. If you are afraid 
of hell-fire ; if your life has been so bad that your death-bed is 
haunted by the ghosts of evil deeds ; if you shudder at facing 
your own music ; if you behold, in mind, the mournful faces of 
the victims of your lust, rapacity, vengeance, hatred, poison, 
bullet, steel, or the worse instrument, slander; then take my 
word for it, you will find it very uncomfortable dying ; and I had 
rather not be in your place. In a word, the mental anguish at 
that moment, far, very far, exceeds in poignancy, the physical ; 
but, as a general thing, the act of dying is a very exhilarating 
business. 

During the rebellion I knew of a colored man, who was caught 
and strung up to a tree, by the "patriots" of the " C. S. A." 
Just after he was done struggling, they took him down, and, by 
dint of plentiful ablutions of cold water, he revived, his neck not 
having been broken. Failing to get the information sought, they 
again hung him till still, and again took pains to revive him, after 
which they let him go. "Well, that man declared that after the 
first choking sensation caused by the stoppage of breath, he ex- 
perienced not the slightest pain whatever ; and that hanging was 
one of the pleasantest feelings imaginable. Such, also, is the 
unvarying testimony, of hundreds who have had a similar ex- 
perience. 

When a boy, I fell overboard at the foot of a pair of boat stairs, 
or rather was pushed over, by Steven Vanhorn, a dusky chum of 
mine, since dead. I was fairly drowned when they got me out, 



80 after death; 

but not a spark of pain felt I till my lungs were reinflated by the 
people near. Again, down South, last year, a boat ran into mine 
and dropped me to the bottom of seven feet of water. I went 
down, feet foremost, and saw the mud rise as my feet struck bot- 
tom ; and I fell over on my back. For an instant, a sharp pang 
shot through me, and then I lay still, croning and dreaming, per- 
fectly happy, and wondering at the magnificent play of colors that 
danced before my eyes, and the delicious strains of music that 
thrilled through my enraptured soul. But suddenly it occurred to 
to me that that was death, and that, unless I made some effort to be 
saved, it would be suicide ; and yet it was hard work to rouse suf- 
ficient energy to make the trial. I did so, however ; got up, raised 
my arm, and was pulled out, thoroughly convinced that death, in 
itself considered, was nothing to be feared in the least degree. 

Bad marriages here ? All I can say on that point is, that there's 
a safe deliverance in the Spirit Land, without the intervention of 
council, judge, or jury. So far as this life is concerned, bad mar- 
riages are an obstacle to progress ; an unhappy, woe-begetting 
union is not marriage ; none but fools can call it so ; and it ought 
not to be considered binding on either victim to it. At least I 
would not, do not, so regard it. Where's no love and respect, 
mutual and reciprocal, there's a violation of every human sanctity, 
and legislators ought to be made to understand it. I am certain 
that a bad marriage here retards our advancement hereafter, 
because it prevents the development of our better and higher 
faculties, and at the same time calls into active play many of the 
lower. 

What is the fate of generals, soldiers, and other legal man- 
slayers? If the cause in which they have fought be that of 
human right, then — although all wars are wrong — the men who 
have fought them are not morally punished for the slaying they 
may have done or caused. 

Those who have died of fright, terror, horror, are, as a general 
thing, a long time recovering placidity and composure, as is the 
case with duellists and those who die of delirium tremens. But a 
man whose trade was that of an executioner is in a bad plight, for 
they are seldom speedily forgiven by those whom they have judi- 
cially slain ; and until they are so forgiven, they are not happy. 
Indeed, no one can be thoroughly contented while there exists 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 81 

anger or a sense of wrong done, in the mind of any one, on earth 
or in the Spiritual Country. 

What is the effect of perverse will, and bad habits, — such as 
drunkenness ? I answer, self-abasement, finally ; disrespect of 
one's self; self-reproachment, based on the consciousness that 
those habits were a species of suicide. Lowly organized men for 
a while rush back to earth, visit their old haunts, and establish 
sympathetic rapport with those of their own grade, where possi- 
ble ; but where not so, they not seldom infest some poor medium, 
and drive him or her to acts whereat the victims would, if left to 
themselves, shudder and turn pale. Many a poor sensitive me- 
dium has been rushed into crime and folly by being made the 
unconscious proxy of some unrepentant wretch from the other 
side. And when once the rapport is firmly established, it is ex- 
ceedingly difficult to dispossess the obsessing spirit. Nothing, 
however, is more certain than that the obsessors incur a dreadful 
penalty for their acts ; and their sufferings will, in the end, be 
very severe. Of course these pains are mental. 

You ask, what is- the origin and fate of genius ? and I reply : 
Genius arises from three sources. 

1. It may be the culmination of an education or culture of a 
single set of faculties in a family for a long period of time. 

2. It may be caused by the persistent exercise,' by the mother 
(during gestation), of her mind in a given direction. 

3. (a) It may be, and often has been, produced by constant 
magnetic operations on the unborn child, by spirits anxious to 
produce a given result ; and 

(6) It may result from nervous excitability, sadness, and a bias 
imparted to the child ; turning the whole current of the mind into 
particular channels, — the voluntary or involuntary culture of 
special faculties. 

Every genius is ticketed for misery in this life ; for there's but 
an angular, one-sided, painful development. A few advantages 
are purchased at enormous cost : a short, brilliant, erratic ca- 
reer ; more kicks than praises ; more flattering leeches than fast 
friends ; rich and joyous to-day, houseless and suffering the pangs 
of hell to-morrow ; understood by God alone ; seldom loved till 
dead ; the victims of bad men, and constant dupes — even of 
themselves ! Genius is a bright bauble, but a dangerous posses- 
11 



82 after death; 

sion. Invariably open to two worlds, they are assaulted, coaxed, 
flattered, led captive on all sides, and the only rest comes with 
death. And although measurably happy, and entirely relieved of 
many disabilities on the further shore, they yet have enormous 
tasks to do. They are compelled to train all their previously 
neglected faculties to something like consonance with those few 
wherewith they startled the world below. For instance : A man 
who was a great architect, musician, plrysiologist, painter, sculp- 
tor, poet, reasoner, must cultivate all his other faculties until he 
becomes rounded out, outgrows his special angularities, and be a 
different man altogether. It is a blessed thing to be able, as I 
am, to tell all such, and all the other tearful, unknown, sad- 
hearted, weary souls ; the unpitied, unappreciated wives j; the 
struggling, honest man, who goes to the wall because he cannot 
pollute his soul by chicanery and low knavery, whereby coarser 
men find thrift, — I repeat, it is joy to me this night to be able to 
pen these lines of assurance that in very truth there's rest, and 
peace, and sweet sleep, and comfort, and sympathy, appreciation, 
and warmly yearning, loving hearts for them up there. How 
some of us will rest, when our year of jubilee shall come, and 
death shall set us free ! 

Let me here say two important things. 1st. Whatever is of 
value comes through much tribulation and pain. Many a great 
thought nearly kills the thinker in its birth. Men and women 
sensitives are often plunged into the most dreadful abysses of 
misery by spirits, in order either to bring out some latent power 
of the mind, or to enable the victim to rise to some correspond- 
ingly dizzy mountain-top of thought, philosophy, invention, or 
poesy. 

2d. Thought is born of sadness and sorrow ; and many of us 
are sorrowful from the cradle to the grave. These are seed suffer- 
ings, from which, in another sphere, will spring gorgeous flowers 
of happiness, whose rich and solacing perfume will undoubtedly 
reward us for our pain. It is a long time to wait, but wait we 
must. I am here speaking of the special sufferings of particularly 
circumstanced and organized persons. 

Is there any music over there ? In reply, let it be forever known 
that the spiritual is not a silent land. But this question involves 
more than at first appears. I have elsewhere said that man is 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 83 

infinite, not in power or development, but in capacity. In the 
early efforts of the race a cave sufficed for shelter, and that sug- 
gested artificial caverns, — a hut being the result. To-day we 
behold crystal palaces, and gorgeous buildings lining our streets. 
What a contrast between the first and last, — the hovel and the 
palace ! and yet both were the work of the same human faculty. 
Again, there is quite a difference between the notched-stick 
methods of our ancestors, and the last series of logarithms ; be- 
tween simple one, two, three, and the calculations of an eclipse 
for the year A. D. 10,000, yet both are from one little organ of 
the same human brain. Listen to the horrid din of rude fiddles 
and worse drums in a West- African Kraal, and then to Offen- 
bach's great opera, TJie Duchess of Gerolstein, for instance. 
Both originated in the same faculty, and we being still babies, j^et 
having our Duchess, what sort of improvements will we not wit- 
ness at the end of say a couple of thousand years from now ? 

Now let us look at all our faculties, and we cannot help seeing 
that, life here being altogether too short for their perfect cul- 
ture, they must still expand and enlarge in our other home ; for, 
believe me, these mighty powers were not given in vain ; conse- 
quently the singer will still sing, the builder build, and the 
architect design, up yonder. It is not our ears that hear ; it is the 
principle within, and we carry that principle with us. There is, 
therefore, music in the Spirit World. Indeed, we often catch 
strains of it here, and it is far sweeter even than Mozart's or 
Beethoven's. 

It is asked, why do people marry over there? and I answer, 
precisely for the same reason they do here, — companionship, love, 
kindliness, mutuality. 

It is also asked what effect follows suffering here, when we are 
over there ? To this I answer that, generally speaking, all suffer- 
ing is disciplinary. It serves to bring out and develop the man ; 
it prepares him to enjoy ease and peace ; it fits his spirit for the 
mighty work of ages that lies before it ; it softens and rounds out 
the inner self ; it shows us the difference between mind and matter ; 
it helps fashion the shape and tendency of our minds, and it 
teaches us that there is a God ; for when in pain all mankind 
believe firmly in the Deity. 

In the Spirit Country people do not suffer the same sort of 



84 aftee death; oe, diseodied man. 

inconveniences as they do here ; but yet whosoever imagines there 
is one eternal Sabbath there, — a period of no work and all play, 
— will speedily have to correct that error ; for there are no idlers 
there ; just as it is true that a life of perfect innocence is the only 
true life, so a life of labor is the only worthy life, no matter 
whether we be in one world or another. A perfect development is 
impossible to be had on earth, for we are surrounded on all sides 
with conditions that prevent, or militate against it. No matter 
how tame a forest beast may become, there are times when its 
savage, wild nature, will, in spite of all kindness, assert itself. 
So also with man, individual and collective. The memory of the 
short time back when we were forest rangers and cave dwellers, 
will occasionally come up ; and we rise from worship to a feast of 
blood ; leap at a bound from peaceful tables to plunge and rush 
into " glorious war." In individual cases, it matters not how 
good and gentle, well-intentioned or just a man may be, there are 
moments when the "Old Adam" bubbles up; when even Chris- 
tians persecute, and " God's mouth-pieces " damn the souls of 
those who disagree with them; hell itself occasionally blazes 
forth, gleams in other time lamb-like features, and the glare of a 
fiend flashes forth from angry eyes. This is because physically he 
is not yet man, any more than mentally. We at best are but 
large children, slowly approximating manhood, and with plentiful 
recollections of the savage foretime. How true it is that even in 
the most polished and "civilized" society 

" There's a lust in man no power can tame, 
Of loudly publishing his neighbor's shame ! 
On eagle wings immortal scandals fly, 
While virtuous actions are but born to die." 

By and by the blood that courses through us will lose its affini- 
ties for physical fire ; we shall outgrow our similarities to the ani- 
mal, and gradually become wholly human. 



CHAPTER VII. 

LOCATION, DIRECTION, DISTANCE, FOBMATION, AND SUBSTANCE OF THE SPIRIT LAND*— 
A NEW PLANET NEAR THE SUN — THE SPIRIT WORLDS VISIBLE TO THE NAKED EYE — 
THE THRONE OP GOD, ITS NATURE, BULK, AND LOCALITY — LOCATION OF THE PINAL 
HOME OF SPIRITS — THE ORIGIN OF THE FIRST HUMAN SOUL — UNCREATED SOULS— 
THE RAIN OF WORLD-SOULS AND SOUL-SEEDS — LOCATION OF THE SEVEN GRAND 
SPHERES OR ZONES — LENGTH OF AN ETERNITY — OUR SPIRIT WORLD VISIBLE ON 
CLEAR NIGHTS — ITS DEPTH AND DIMENSIONS — DISTANCE AND SUBSTANCE OP • THE 

SPIRITUAL WORLD HOW WE GO TO AND FROM THERE — PLANTS AND ANIMALS OF 

SPIRIT LAND — SCENERY ABOUT THE SPIRITUAL SUN — BOREAL AND AUSTRAL SUNS 
NOW FORMING AT THE POLES — VAMPIRES — WEIGHT OF A SPIRIT. 

Question. — "What and where, in the Spirit World, Morning 
Land, Better Country, Home of the Soul, or Aidenn, are the 
spheres or dwelling-place of the^disbodied human spirit? What 
is it made of? In what way is it distinct from matter, and the 
great ethereal ocean you have spoken of ? Is it subject to gravita- 
tion ? How do we get there, and back ? Is there any death there ? 
Do we sleep? What are our occupations? Do sects abound 
there as here ? How do we live when there ? What is the size of 
our spirits ? Can we penetrate solid matter and exist ? Is it pos- 
sible to annihilate a spirit ? Would a man live after being blown 
to atoms from a gun? Are we there, as here, characterized by 
red and dark hair, complexions, slenderness, and obesity? Do we 
use vocal language? Are there kings and rulers there? Are 
famous persons here celebrated there? What are the standards 
of beauty ? Are there books ? Are nations distinct ? Where are 
the dead of a million years ago ? " 

Reply. — Here is a formidable catalogue of questions, truly! 
They are to be answered specifically, as well as" in the light of 
general principles ; to one of which latter I must now call your 
attention, my object being to impart a clear understanding of the 
general subject of human immortality. Take an onion or a rose and 
you forthwith know of their existence by the sense of smell, as well 
as those of touch and sight. Well, all things else give off similar 

85 



86 AFTER death; 

emanations, a part of their life or spirit ; and everything is sur- 
rounded by its own peculiar atmosphere, invisible yet perceptible, 
impalpable yet material, spiritual and real ; spiritual, because 
even the invisible odic or perfume sphere, in turn gives forth 
emanations bearing the same relations to it, that the sphere does 
to the object emitting it. The dog knows his master's sphere 
among a thousand others, and never .makes mistakes. We are 
impressed favorably, or the reverse, according as the personal 
spheres of those we contact with, affect us. We instinctively 
like or dislike individuals solely on this ground. By and by we 
will all become so sensitive to the spheres of individuals as to 
understand them perfectly, and detect with unerring certainty a 
bad man or woman, no matter how honeyed and plausible their 
verbal protestations may be. Well, this and all other planets, like 
objects on their or its surface, emit a vast sphere composed of 
carbo-oxygenic bubbles, or minute globules, developed by the 
decomposition of watery particles in the five vast salt oceans of 
the globe. Being globular they are also hollow ; and a higher 
chemical change is constantly taking place in them, each and 
every one. By the action upon these tiny globules (atmospheric 
air) of the magnetic and electric emanations from the land, each 
one of these globules — batteries they are — becomes filled with a 
finer fluid, and this is life, or nerve aura of the earth ; for, let it 
be understood, the earth is itself a living organism, — not an ani- 
mal, but still alive ; were it not so, it could not produce living 
things, either sentient or vegetable. When we inhale air these 
bubbles burst ; the carbon they contain is partly thrown out by 
the lungs ; the oxygen goes to build up the body, while the spirit 
or life goes to sustain the interior nervous being of men and 
brutes. But all the atmosphere is not used up. We live in a sea 
of it forty-five miles deep ; the grosser particles floating nearest 
earth, and the more ethereal portion far up, or down, towards the 
zenith. We all know that the centripetal motion of a revolving 
body tends to shape it oblately spherical, and that the lighter par- 
ticles fly off at 'a tangent on the equatorial line ; or at a point 
midway between the oblate polar ends. Here, then, is the princi- 
ple, briefly. But I wish to impress a great fact upon your mind 
right here. It is this : The earth rotates upon its axis ; performs 
an orbital revolution round the sun : another in the course of long; 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 87 

ages, with the sun about his superior sun ; and the entire galaxy 
to which he belongs revolves upon its galactic axis, and that con- 
stitutes its enormous day, around its unimaginable centre, and 
that makes its, to us, almost eternal year. And it, too, like this 
globe of ours, has its eccentric revolutions, performed in periods 
of time that defy all our arithmetic to compute, our fancy to con- 
ceive. It is difficult to restrain myself from enlarging on this 
magnificent truth, shining so clearly upon my soul on this beauti- 
ful May morning. 

Every atom of matter yields up its perfected spirit, and the earth 
throws off a continual stream thereof on the equatorial line. It is 
hot there ; particles expand ; decomposition and chemical change go 
on more rapidly and perfectly in the torrid than in any other zone. 
In torrid climes the earth-essence, the spirit of the air, rushes off 
from the surface ; and only enough is retained to merely support 
nerval life ; hence torrid people are more sensational than nervous, 
more flashful than enduring, more passional than affectionate, more 
animal than human, more impulsive than principled, and more super- 
stitious than intellectual. In the colder countries this earth-life, 
this subtle vif, this nerve-essence of matter, flows along the sur- 
face toward the equator. It is breathed and appropriated by man 
in much larger quantities ; and therefore the people there, away 
in the temperate zones, have larger brains ; more and finer strung 
nerves ; keener and broader aspirations, ambitious, and intellects ; 
and they indisputably govern the entire world. Now the " Spirit 
World" means more than at first the term conveys : for not only 
is there one for this world, surrounding it as does the atmosphere, 
but there is a belt or zone above that, and one above that, and 
still another. So is there one or more, according to the stage 
of geographical, vegetative, and animal refinement it may have 
reached, about every planet in our solar system, the asteroids and 
a few moons excepted, which have only a mere ethylic or mag- 
netic envelope so far. With reference to the moons of the solar 
system, no doubt they will in time be peopled ; but not so with 
reference to the asteroidal fragments of the shattered planet that 
once revolved between Mars and Jupiter. These will all, sooner 
or later, be drawn into the seas of the various globes whose paths 
they cross. When that planet burst asunder and scattered its 
fragments over the floor of space, it altered the relations of the 



88 AFTER DEATH ; 

entire solar system ; and was the cause of the great cataclysm 
that swept this earth with a. watery bath; sunk Plato's Atlantis 
island ; upheaved Sahara ; rent the continents asunder, and filled 
the world with terror. Lately a new planet has been formed 
within the orbit of Mercury ; another ring is being forced from 
the sun, and two comets are globating on the outer verge of the 
system ; and it is owing to these changes that the earth is now 
altering both its axis and its inclination to the plane of the eclip- 
tic. Hence universal disturbance, wars and rumors of wars, have 
for some time prevailed, and will, until an equilibrium is again 
established. 

Another and another change will follow, until the era of univer- 
sal harmony is physically, and therefore mentally and spiritually, 
reached. 

The sun himself is surrounded by spiritual belts, just as is this 
earth, whose spirit zone is visible to others, and partly so to us 
(we call it in scientific parlance, "the zodiacal light"), just as we 
behold the lower belts or zones of Jupiter and Saturn. Well, the 
law holds good which ever way we look ; for the entire solar sys- 
tem is girdled with a belt of spiritual substance ; and on its sur- 
face is finally collected all the spiritual offspring of all the planets 
within its royal embrace, from whence they eventually take their 
flight to that vast zone which encircles our entire galaxy. Nor 
does our career stop even at that point. But of this more at 
another time, space forbidding me to here enlarge or amplify the 
subject. To return : — 

The spiritual world to which we go from this earth in dream, 
vision, or when life's fitful fever is over, is, as already stated, a 
zone, or belt at right angles with the poles. It is composed, sub- 
stantially, of the unused essences of matter, electric, magnetic, 
odic, projected from earth in its constant axial revolutions. The 
peculiar substances of which I speak are not absolutely, though 
apparently coalescent, and while not being the refuse of earth, 
are not required for other than the purposes they subserve. Each 
planet, sun, astral and stellar galaxy in universal space is simi- 
larly belted. Here I must call attention to a stupendous fact. I 
have already said that this material universe, embracing uncount- 
able systems, is elliptical in form. I have also said that it occu- 
pies one of the foci of another awful ellipse, — an equally mighty 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 89 

one being at the other. The movements are all elliptical, or 
gyral, — in special instances. Well, just imagine the entirety of 
systems of suns to be a point in this infinite ellipse, and that the 
other is occupied by a Sun of suns, ultra spiritual, immeasurably 
less in magnitude, but shining with an effulgence inconceivable, 
balancing the whole, and sustaining all, and you will have a faint 
idea of the dwelling-place of power, the great spiritual centre ; 
the sky from whence suns and starry systems rain down like 
sparks from a rocket, or snow-flakes in wintry weather ; you will 
behold the vortex where matter and spirit alike are forged ; the 
home of the great Positive Soul ; the head and brain and eye of 
all Being ; the inscrutable ante-chamber where souls are fashioned, 
and wait to be sent forth to be born, the mystery of mysteries, the 
veil which conceals the infinite, eternal God. 

Not all spirits have yet beheld that sun ; not one will ever be 
able to comprehend it ; but all will be warmed by its rays ; all 
will be expanded by its heat. Well, around this sun, around 
this entire ellipse, embracing all matter, is another and final zone 
or belt, and this is the final scene, and will be so long as the 
present universe exists. " Then the final home is outside of mat- 
ter and of God?" No, for God there is the Alpha Sun in its 
zenith, and the Omega in its nadir ; and his divine aura pulsates 
in and through it as blood circulates through the veins. 

The career run by mankind on this or any other earth of space 
constitutes his first, rudimental or primary stage of being. 
* Question. — " But there must have been a time when no earth of 
all the spaces had yet produced a single human being ; a time 
when only God and matter, or that substratum whereon it is 
based, were in existence ? If there ever was such a period, how 
do you account for the creation of the first human soul, the primal 
man? In a word, where do souls originate? Let that question 
be settled." 

Reply. — Undoubtedly souls are monads; are not created, but 
only incarnated, through and by the agency of the human duo-sexual 
organism. From the great vortex, — from the Fountain, there is 
a perpetual outflow of, not worlds, but world-souls ; not human 
beings, but human seeds, monads. Their number is incalculable. 
These monads flow to every perfected earth in the universe, and 
there become incarnated, and thence intelligent, deathless beings. 
12 



90 after death; 

The only difference between them consists in sex, and the more 
or less perfect conditions and refinement of the special projecting 
fathers, and nidulating, nursing mothers. There you have the 
answer in brief space. 

The first stage of a human career being on this earth terminates 
at death. The scene of its activities is then transferred to the 
surface of the zones surrounding this earth (or any other) situated 
beyond the outer limits of its or their atmospheric envelopes re- 
spectively. The third stage of being succeeds the second. (But 
let it be remembered that the second stage embraces a career upon* 
all the zones or belts connected directly with and crowning, the 
earth or earths.) The scene of the third grand stage is upon the 
solar belt. The fourth grand stage is upon the majestic and mag- 
nificent zone which engirdles the entire solar system. The fifth 
grand stage of human existence succeeds the fourth, and its scene 
is upon the immense belt or zone that encircles the tremendous 
globe around which not only our own sun with its attendant family 
of planets, but the cluster to which it belongs, revolves, performing 
a single circuit in a period not less than eleven hundred billions 
of quintillions of solar years. This vast body is one of the 
Pleiades, or " Seven Stars " now known to be, not the star 
" Alcyone," as some astronomers have asserted, but which I de- 
clare to be a non-luminous sun in that direction, and which sus- 
tains the same relation to this Galactic System, that our sun does 
to us and our sister planets. Around that central globe unnum- 
bered millions of suns and planets pursue and whirl their varying 
courses. The sixth grand stage of human existence succeeds the 
fifth, and its scene is upon an immense belt or zone that surrounds 
another dark sun, exactly balancing that in the direction of 
" Alcyone," — the twain constituting the foci of an immense ellipse, 
— one being a Positive " the other " Negative ; " tve pertain to the 
latter. About these two foci two awful galaxies severally perform 
their tremendous sweep in opposite directions. When first I saw 
this it was impossible for me to comprehend the principia thereof, 
and I so stated in the first edition of this work ; since then, how- 
ever, I have discovered the grand dual law of existence, Positive 
and Negative, Male and Female, extending through all being, — 
starry clusters, nebulae, and galaxies being no exception to the uni- 
versal rule. 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 91 

Brainful men have recognized this law in earthly things, and 
even applied it to the Godhead, and it is passing strange that 
they have never dreamed of its universality ; that some planets, 
systems, clusters, galaxies are male, and others female ; that some 
continents and empires are of one sex, and others of the opposite ; 
that some ages are male, other ages female, — in short that the 
duality is complete from moss to starry zones. I saw, and now 
declare, with reference to the amazing ellipse written of, that one 
of the foci represents the female, and the other the male, — just as 
matter is male and spirit female, — in the broader sense. Around 
each of these foci sweeps an awful train of luminous worlds, and 
spanning each one is a spiritual zone of vast magnitude, each 
teeming with myriads of angelic beings, and overflowing with un- 
utterable beauty. 

If, before I pass over the river to the better shore, I am permitted 
to write further concerning the Spiritual Kingdoms of farther 
space, I shall amplify the points here merely touched upon, not 
for want of inclination, bat of means to give what I write to the 
world. [Oh, for some Stewart with an open hand to aid poor strug- 
gling authors, — the sad, toiling, unrequited workers like myself, 
almost starving for bread, yet whose eyes are overflowing with 
grateful tears because God halh opened them to a few of his most 
excellent glories !] 

Around both these foci and the galaxies they control, — encircling 
the entire ellipse like a belt of molten silver, is another zone ; 
and on that zone is the scene of the seventh grand stage of human 
existence. This mighty belt completely environs all created or ex- 
istent matter ! It encircles the entire galaxies, just as Saturn's 
rings engirdle him, or the Zodiacal light embraces its material 
centre, — our earth. 

In this present work I design, for the purpose of correcting some 
very popular misapprehensions existing on the general subject of 
the spiritual worlds, to treat principally concerning that portion 
of the supernal realm, or ethereal world immediately connected 
with this earth and the solar system to which it belongs ; and con- 
sequently, mainly concerning man's -second grand stage or sphere 
of existence. As previously remarked, should opportunity offer, I 
purpose to write concerning the other grand stages of being in 
their due order and sequence, — especially concerning the origin 



92 AFTER death; 

of souls. The final zone, I may here say, however, crosses our 
"Milky Way" at right angles. Here however, let me be clearly 
and distinctly understood : I have spoken of the " Final zone," and 
described it as circumvolving all the material suns, planets, and 
systems in being. This is true. But it is also true that there are, 
no less than six other grand zones resembling it, but infinitely 
superior thereto ; albeit the transcendent glories of the first one 
exceed the powers of a seraph to describe. In and of these other 
six, there is absolutely nothing whatever resembling anything per- 
taining to the first. They are separated from our grand zone and 
the Realm of Matter as we know it by distances so inconceivable, 
that the life of an archangel would be too short to compute them. 

The whole seven may be said to resemble a series of hoops, 
crossing and circumvolving each other in various directions, no 
two being in the same line or plane, and the whole forming one 
vast globe, equatorially bulging, oblate at the poles, limited by an 
amorphous wall, and crowned by the heaven of heavens, — the 
Deific realm, or Universe of universes, the central Brain of Ex- 
istence, the unimaginable dwelling-place of the Incomprehensible 
God! .... Let us return from this enormous flight — not 
of imagination, but of clairvoyance — to what more directly con- 
cerns us. And, first, let me here observe, that, when man has 
exhausted all the resources of the grand galactic zone ; when he 
can draw no more of knowledge, power, or wisdom therefrom ; 
when its seven stages general have been passed, and he graduates, 
or is prepared to, he will have completed one grand cycle of his 
career, vast and mighty, — during the period losing never a day 
of advancement ; but there will remain many other cycles to be 
begun and ended, concerning which tremendous truth-facts the 
revelation hour is not yet come. But it will come, and till it does, 
the student, the curious, and the world must wait. 

Gases thrown off from revolving bodies by centrifugal force, 
must necessarily, by the laws of motion, applied to elastic fluids, 
assume the form of continuous belts, oval or circular in form ; 
and this law it is that determines the form of the spiritual zones ; 
and the vast wave of sublimated matter whereof they are com- 
puted, invariably conforms to this beautiful law. In fact, at 
times, the spiritual crown of this earth is distinctly visible to the 
human eye, and its shape ma} r be observed ; for, if you look close 



OE, DISBODIED MAIST. 93 

to the sun, just before it " sets," you will see a luminous aura, — 
the edge of the spiritual belt of earth, and be told by astronomers 
that it is the " zodiacal light," albeit they are ignorant of its 
nature, origin, use, or substance. Now, the average thickness of 
this belt varies, from one mile at its polar edges to nearly six 
hundred times that much at its equator, and in some places ap- 
proaches nine hundred miles in depth. At a distance of between 
four and five hundred miles above it is another belt, and others 
still beyond that ; but these are mere laminations of the first one, 
and are in no sense to be regarded as separate or disparated 
zones, — they are parts of one zone, — just as a lady's belt, 
leather, velvet, silk, jewels, are all portions of one ornament. 
The joint axis of revolution of these laminae or belts is that of 
earth, — except the most external one, which to me has never ap- 
peared to have an axial movement, — at least, such as I could 
discern. The common rate of revolution of this laminated zone 
is evidently less than that of earth. 

The material of these zones is no impediment to the solar ray. 
They move with the earth around the sun, and with the sun around 
the dark star, in the direction of Alcyone, — as already stated. 
A complete revolution about that great centre, according to as- 
tronomical calculations of recent date, requires a period of three 
hundred and ninety-four billions of solar years ! — an error, for 
truer computations will conform to the periods set forth on a pre- 
vious page of the present work. 

Many " Spirits " — I dislike that term, and prefer " Disbodied," 
or "Ethereal People" — roam for a time, and exist upon the 
upper surfaces of earth's atmosphere, at distances varying from 
fifty to four hundred miles above the highest mountain-tops ; yet 
there are scores of thousands who linger here in our midst for 
long years, not seldom " haunting " houses, and troubling people 
generally ; but the mean distance of the lowest zone proper 
from earth, is not less, I judge, than fifteen thousand miles. By 
reason of its rarefaction, compared with terrestrial things, and its 
great distance combined, it is, save under the conditions above 
stated, transparent to mortal eyes ; and yet is, in one sense, far 
more solid than the gross materials about us here ; because spirit, 
or subtle essence is actual, real substance, — is the changeful, but 
indestructible substratum of all material, or visible and external 



94 AFTER death; 

existences. The average breadth of that first zonal world, crown- 
ino* this world of ours, is three hundred and nine thousand 
miles, except at two points, — what may be called its polar 
axes, where it decreases to about a uniform breadth of forty 
thousand miles. 

Eespiration and expiration are universal ; we see it in animated 
nature and in the vegetable kingdom — ay, even in the tides of 
ocean. It is also true of worlds and zones, for the latter inhale, as 
it were, the aromal essences of earth, and exhale their finer and 
more sublimed particles, which volatile essences rise and in turn 
constitute a belt or lamina above it, and so on until the last 
one, which gives off a river of fine substance, — an aerial, majestic 
stream of flowing pellucid electroidal essence, which runs to, and 
connects it with, the solar zone, whence other similar rivers flow 
to those other and vaster belts elsewhere described, and finally to 
that colossal one which encircles and embraces the immense clus- 
ter of stars and nebulae to which we belong. 

Another singular fact must here be noted. At the north and 
south poles of this earth is an aerial river. Where it enters the 
earth's atmosphere it is electric ; where it quits it it is magnetic. 
This river flows along the earth, and through it, and on both sides 
connects it with the great zone. On that zone it flows across it, 
but not always in the same place. It brings to earth somewhat of 
the spiritual air of the upper land ; and on its buoyant tide our 
disbodied brothers and sisters, if so disp6sed, joyously hie them 
hither ; and on its pellucid stream, swelled to a broad river by 
electric contributions from earth's surfaces, our visitors return to 
the upper globe, and the newly dead go home. 

The lower or hitherward side or surface is rugged, hilly, and 
concave ; for mountains and superficial inequalities above extend 
below, precisely as with the terrene and sub-terrene elevations 
hereon earth. The superior surface is slightly convex, but not 
nearly so much as is this world below. To the physical eye the 
zonal material would appear as if made of the most gossamer-like 
and fleecy cloud substance, its general color being a lightish-gray, 
pearl-dashed green, shading up to white, and toning down to a 
sombre drab-gray. Indeed, with reference to some portions there- 
of, the light and beautiful appearance of the glorious multi-tinted 
vapors of a tropical sunrise is the nearest approach to a just descrip- 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 95 

fcion of it that I am able to give ; and that falls far short of the 
reality ! 

The general appearance of Vernalia, or Aidenn, as not a few 
English, American, and Arab dwellers therein, call the upper coun- 
try, to a great degree resembles that of this world, save that ex- 
cept in certain, what may be justly called, Edge-regions ; it is in- 
comparably more beautiful, refined, diversified, and variegated ; 
and its fauna and flora are entirely different from, and superior to, 
anything seen here, if we partially except the production of fa- 
vored spots in India, Africa, and Central Australia, — the gardens 
and conservatories of earth in those respects. 

Now, let the reader understand, once for all, that in no sense 
whatever is the upper country a phantom land. On the contrary, 
it is far more real, solid, and enduring than the firmest rock-ribbed 
mountains of this sub-solar globe ; and to its inhabitants is quite 
as real and tangible as is the land and water about us here on 
earth to us. Never let these facts be forgotten. I am perfectly 
aware that there now floats upon the tide of so-called " Spiritual" 
literature, hundreds of fancy descriptions of the farther land ; but 
these all, or nearly all, have their origin in the imaginations of the 
writers, who have never yet caught one single glimpse of what 
they have undertaken so minutely to describe. Nor am I unaware 
that my own descriptions may be challenged. I expect they will 
be. But I also know that the age of clairvoyance is rapidly ap- 
proaching, and, in the myriad concurrent testimonies of coming 
seers, I look for corroborations of what I have here written, and 
am to write, perfectly assured that every one of my statements 
will be demonstrated to be as true as light is true ! 

Our senses, over there, are vastly more acute and powerful than 
while we are here, especially the seeing power. The very slight 
general slope or rotundity of the surface there, affords a vast 
range of vision. Any object here, even the loftiest mountain, soon 
sinks beneath the horizon. Not so there, for the pitch is far less : 
hence a wider range of view can be, and is, had of its varied and 
diverse scenery. Not that, like the pampas, prairies, or even the 
lowlands of Louisiana, it is a dead level, — for such is by no means 
the case ; for there are hills, dales, mountains, levels, brooks, slopes, 
glades, valleys, lakes, rivers, and seas ; in a word, our spirits are 
there, and so is that of our earth, and all that marks and adorns 



96 after death; 

it, so far as these marks are beautiful, good, and true, and near- 
ly all that is not so remains here, and by us is forever left behind 
until by upward change it becomes so ; for the good, the true, and 
the beautiful are imminent, and inherent in all things, and only 
the element of Time is required to work them to the surface. To 
illustrate : there are gigantic men and women, — fat monstrosities 
everywhere in the world, — people who weigh four hundred pounds 
or more. They die ; but in looking for them there, you would not 
expect to. see an overgrown spirit ; nor, if you did, would you find 
it. But, on the contrary, you would see them of the same general 
dimensions as other people. There is an apparent exception to this 
rule, but it is apparent only. Media and seers very often describe 
the dead just as they appeared when on the earth, and by these 
marks are identified. Well, in such cases it is never the spirit that 
is seen, but merely a phantom, — a projected image from the spirit. 
My experience as a seer gives me authority to say that only about 
ten per cent, of the spirits, and scenes claimed to be viewed by the 
persons referred to, are real ; , and that ninety per cent, are pure 
phasmas, or images projected by spirits upon the mental retinas of 
the sensitives of the world ; for real and absolute clairvoyance is 
as rare in these days as are genuine physical media. And here 
let me say once for all that jugglery has been so systematized in 
these days, that not more than one so-called physical manifesta- 
tion in fifty is to be relied on for what they purport to be. 

For years I had, without once thinking to apply the test of clair- 
voyance, firmly believed in, and accepted the Davenports, Ellis 
girls, and other physical " wonders," as real and genuine, and 
flew off at a tangent when people denounced them as expert jug- 
glery. Now all that is changed. I was first brought to examine 
the matter from a conversation with a gentleman named Dyott, of 
Philadelphia, who first put me on my guard against all that sort 
of thing ; and, subsequently a Mr. Von Vleck, whom, with others, 
I had been led to denounce as an impostor, convinced me that the 
work he was doing, in the exposure of the charlatans, was well 
worthy Of an honest, honorable gentleman ; for while both these 
gentlemen firmly believed in Spiritualism, they were possessed of 
brains sharp enough to detect imposture, and noble outspoken 
courage to properly denounce it, and put the world on its guard 
against a species of scoundrelism the most mean and contemptible 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 97 

ever undertaken, — that of publicly sporting with the most sacred 
feelings of the human heart, and palming off on human beings 
their adroit tricks as the* genuine manifestations of the disboclied 
loved ones gone before. All honor to Dyott and his co-workers ! 
Success to Von Vleck, in the exposure of fraud ! 

The scenery of the upper land is illumined, in the first instance, 
by the self-effulgent atmosphere of that region; in the second 
place, by the spiritual zone of the sun, which zone by the way, 
was seen by Swedenborg, and was described by him and many of 
the ethereal people he held intercourse with. It was errone- 
ously supposed, from its transcendent glory, to be the throne of 
God ; and was constantly spoken of as " The Spiritual Sun shin- 
ing in the mid-heaven." 

The third source of light, in the spiritual realm alluded to, is 
that of two vast magnetic moons surmounting its two poles, and 
moving in very brief orbits, — just as, by and by, this earth of 
ours will be lighted, — for when its present third motion ceases, it 
will have changed its poles, swung round again, as it has before 
(when the deluge was, and tropical beasts and forests were buried 
beneath arctic snows in the twinkling of an eye, from which snows 
we no T .v get their relics and remains), — only that this time the 
change will be more gradual ; the earth will slowly swing into a 
new position with reference to the ecliptic and galactic planes ; 
its ices will melt ; the seasons become less extreme and irregular, 
but more even and equable ; the molten materials in its vast 
bowels will be shifted, and new oceans of electricity be generated ; 
the electric, magnetic, diamagnetic, and thermal lines will change, 
— one consequence of which will be, that man will breathe a more 
electric and less carbonaceous air, hence will be more intelligent, 
spiritual, intuitive, gentle ; and less belligerent, sensual, mean, 
grasping, and slanderous ; — and the earth will receive a great 
addition of light ; first, from a boreal and electric sun, just over 
its then north pole, and a corresponding austral one over the 
south pole. The first one of these I proclaim to be already in 
process of formation, just westward of the earth's axis of gravity. 
This boreal sun is to be a permanent, and ever-enlarging auroral 
globe ; not in sheets or fitful and transitory electric flashes, as 
are now seen on wintry nights in arctic regions, and which shoot 
up and stream off into space, leaving no sign, but globular, bril- 
13 



98 after death; 

liant, and enduring ; — and when this takes place, .arctic climates, 
as well as tropic heats, will have ceased to be forever. This sun, 
these suns, will gradually recede till they'reach certain points in 
the arctic and austral zeniths, where, describing short circular 
orbits, they will remain. Such are some of Jupiter's moons to- 
day, and some other planets are similarly favored, but not all. I 
regret that space will not allow me here to enlarge upon the 
wonderful effects those changes will bring to earth and its inhab- 
itants, and only will I here remark that when the fearful storms 
and tempests which will inaugurate these changes shall have 
ceased, the dawn of the good time, so long coming, will be here. 
Civilization and religious and political changes and revolutions 
depend, far more than men imagine, upon the electrical conditions 
of the globe ; and so long as those conditions are liable to the 
changes consequent upon the earth's efforts to reach, her proper 
place, state, and conditions, just so long will chaos reign as now ; 
for we are just what these changes make us, no more, no less, no 
better, no worse. What a seed-thought is here ! 

The fauna and flora of the upper land differ in diverse sections 
there as here. v Forests there are, and natural gardens ; but all 
these differ amazingly from any similar things here below. Media 
in various localities, in the early clays of modern spiritualism, 
very frequently drew pencil pictures of various nondescript fruits 
and flowers that resembled nothing on or under the earth ever 
seen before. These purported to be, and probably were, sketches, 
more or less imperfect, of upper-land realities, but invariably of 
the lowest grades and orders, and bearing the same relation to 
the higher and better forms there that our coarse giant ferns, 
grasses, reeds, moss, and lichens do to our most perfect dahlias, 
roses, peaches and — highest of all earthly fruits — the pear. 

With us on this globe heat and moisture are the sources and 
springs of all vegetable life, motion, and form. It is not so up 
there. Such warmth as we experience here is not known in any 
part of that fair countiy. True, there is a sort of heat, but it is, 
so to speak, exusive — or from within ; it is the result of interior 
motion — (as is the heat inspired by anger and desire here) , — has 
its rise from the centre, and is not externally applied by the sun's 
raj^s, or heat from any astral body. 

Moisture, as we understand it, is there wholly unknown. But 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 99 

in its stead there is a life-principle in the very air, that invigorates 
and sustains all with which it contacts. Actinia, the chemical 
principle of light, is there not needed in the same form as here, 
and therefore does not so exist, for in that land there can be no 
decay, as in these realms where life is dependent on the solar ray. 
Of course cold — which is — maugre all the scientists aver to the 
contrary — something more than a mere absence of caloric, or 
negation of heat — is there wholly unknown. 

Were it not so, and a disbodied one were exposed to its rigors, 
no spirit lives who could withstand it ; for no being thus subject, 
could pass through the bleak regions forty miles above the earth 
where the cold reaches some thousands of degrees below the point 
of frozen alcohol ! 

In that fair land above us all floral life is vastly fuller, com- 
pleter, and more perfect than in this, comparatively, dismal 
world ; for magnetoidal, electroiclal, and etheroidal elements 
and principles supersede heat, cold, moisture, solar light, and 
actinism ; hence, in consequence of the non-existence of the 
coarser chemistry, decomposition is never seen or known. Nine- 
temhs of the " sins" of this lower world — and virtues as well — 
are, and hereafter will be proven to be, entirely chemical in their 
origin, — that is to say, will be seen to be dependent on purely 
chemical conditions, as is well known to thousands up there ; and 
when that truth finds a lodgment here, the race will bid " good- 
by " to jails, gibbets, priests, politicians, and the whole list 
for which Christ died to redeem man from the effects of, — 
according to popular belief. 

Up there it is true in more senses than one, that " Death is 
swallowed up in victory," — in fact is a misnomer everywhere, 
— but there totally and wholly unknown in any form whatever. 
True it is specially revealed to me that, at a certain stage, of 
man's career, a change, correspondent thereto, occurs to him ; but 
that change is a whole epoch off in the misty future, and of that 
I am not now inclined to write. /Suffice it that when it is reached 
he will lie down and sleep awhile; but from that wondrous slumber 
he will rise again, — rise in majesty and might — to the exercise of 
Creative energy ! But I am trenching here upon forbidden ground- 
Let us return, and pursue our even way. 

All earthly elements and things refine away and advance to 



100 AFTER DEATH ; 

certain stages and degrees of perfection gradually changing their 
grosser forms, and^ finally exhaling like vapors in the summer 
sun, flow off into, and combine with, the great ascending elec- 
trical rivers, and in time become part and parcel qf the externe of 
the zone ; and the same facts obtain of the zones themselves, 
until the very last and final one of all, and then the. next step is 
— Deity ! 

The absolute forms of things, being, in esse, ideas of God, or 
the supreme Thinker, cannot wholly perish ; but the coarser 
refine away toward absolute beauty, reproducible, in higher 
types, to all the vast eternity ; for they are, at bottom, more or 
less modified, divine, and celestial principles. For instance, to 
illustrate the idea ; take two persons, one a Hottentot, digger- 
Indian, or thick-lipped Negro of the Potter tribe, — two or three 
specimens of whom may be often seen waddling up and down the 
streets of Boston, listlessly staring in the shop windows and 
fancying themselves ultra human, when but three removes from 
the horn-headed gorilla, — the other shall be a glorified seraph 
from the galactic girdle of the universe of universes. They are 
both men, — are the same externalized idea, but what a difference ! 
one would eat his brother — the Hottentot ; one is ignorant of God's 
existence — the Digger ; one, the thick-lipped Negro, is wholly 
unprincipled, incapable of refinement or true civilization, and 
would swear away the liberty or life of his best friend with per- 
fect nonchalance and moral unconcern ; — while the last, the 
seraph, would plunge into the seething hell — if one existed — to 
save his most malignant foe. It is the difference of a lump of 
charcoal against the koh-i-noor, the largest and most costly dia- 
mond known ; and these last are again both identical in sub- 
stance, — the very same idea, each being carbon ; but one is valued 
at ten cents a bushel, the other at two million pounds sterling, — 
an emperor's ransom twice told ! Now, a word here about grades. 
I do not believe there ever will be a time in all being, when 
either the Digger, the Hottentot, or the Potter Negro, will approach 
the same sort of perfection the seraph hath reached, — not even 
when billions of centuries shall have rolled away. For they have 
neither the quality, grade, volume, or quantity of soul the other 
has ; and they never can attain it, not that they will not be happy 
and measurably perfect, but the grades never either mingle, merge, 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 101 

cross or fuse. An eternal gulf divides them here, an eternal gulf 
will always roll between them ! I find seven distinct grades and 
orders of men here, all moving in separate grooves. I find the 
same seven distinct grades in the Spirit World, and I believe the 
separating lines to be eternal. It is impossible that a low-grade 
man or woman can overtake a high-grade one, for, as progress is 
in arithmetical order, the high-grade man will not only always 
keep his immense advantage, but will forever increase it ; and a 
thousand eternities will not be long enough to enable Cuffee to 
catch Carlyle, or low Pompey to overtake high Theodore Parker. 
It can never be ! There is no democracy in the spheres ! It is 
all a system of grades, and men there as here, will forever rise 
higher than others. Aristocracy prevails in Aidenn ; but it is 
one based on integral volume, inherent weight and worth, and not 
upon pretence or wealth. No one believes one man as good as 
another here ; no one does over there. 

Question. — "Yon have heretofore spoken of a vast Spiritual 
Ocean, — an Ethereal Sea, — a mighty, space-filling reservoir. Now, 
how, and in what way, and respect, is the spirit-home, as such, dis- 
tinct from that wonderful sea, whereon the material universe floats 
like an island, and is forever upborne ? And in what consists the 
difference between the material, so to speak, of that ocean, and 
that whereof the spiritual zones are composed? These are re- 
garded as very pertinent queries, and such as no writer has ever 
yet attempted a repty to. And is it true that spirits can go out 
at will into open space, or whither they please upon the waves of 
that shoreless tide ? " 
* fieply. — And to the last question first : I affirm that no spirit 
whatever can go out into absolute space, any more than a man 
here could walk on unfrozen water ; for in each case the adventur- 
ers would instantly sink, — the one to the bottom of the flood, the 
other to the abyss ; provided he was not by gravity hurled within 
the orbit of some star in space, — very likely to be the case. 
Every spirit is compelled to make all its transits on the lines of 
the various and numerous ethereal rivers, which rivers connect, 
more or less directly, every sun and globe in each system with 
each and every other sun and globe therein ; while similar streams 
afford connections between diverse systems and starry clusters, and 
still others communicate with the different circles or belts of suns ; 



102 AFTER death; 

hence the several parts of the Grand Universe of Universes are 
united by a majestic network of rivers of light. So far that 
special point. 

Now observe : The zonal homes of mankind differ from the vast 
spacial sea around us, and in which we float, in this respect : the 
latter may be likened unto a sea of water ; the former to the bubble 
of free oxygen floating on its bosom. The one is original, primal, 
crude, — just as evolved from the Vortex, — is, and serves as, a 
cushion ; the other is derived, refined, rectified, and is cushioned. 
A simile : It is (as) raw alcohol compared with finest wine ; soil 
to roses, sunlight to a taper, coarse wool to peerless satin, tow 
cloth to a queen's scarf, oyster shells to rarest pearls, or a bar of 
cast iron to a coil of watch-spring, — so vast and wonderful are 
the disparated differentia of the two existences. 

We must have a nomenclature ; for without names, ideas can 
neither be expressed nor conveyed ; wherefore we call the aura 
which surrounds and embraces all the galaxies AETHER (using the 
diphthong) ; that which fills the interstellar spaces, Ether (without 
, the diphthong) ; that which on the belts serves as atmospheric air 
does here, and is there breathed, we call Ethylle; and the sub- 
stance of the zones themselves we call etherod ; the material of 
man's ethereal form we call Spirit; the informing, intelligent 
spark we call Soul, and the motion of that Soul is — Mind ! 

When a man, woman, or child here is about to die, some one up 
there knows it beforehand, even if that death appears to every one 
here the result of an unforeseen accident, as a stroke of lightning, 
sudden bursting of a gun or boiler, — no matter what ; there was 
no accident about it ; the thing was foreordained and foreknown ; 
and the ethereal friends prepare for the event with as much ear- 
nestness and interest as midwives and others clo when a mother is 
about to give a child to the world and God. But the newly dead 
do not by any means always hie off to the Morning Country from 
this Mourning Land of ours ; but they not seldom linger for weeks, 
months, and even years, their attachments (as with certain misers 
and murderers) being so very positive and strong, in some cases ; 
and in others, they, like still-born children, undergo a discipline, — 
a sort of practical, magnetic education, within the limits of the 
earth's atmosphere. Thus we have haunted houses ; and it is not 
an uncommon thing for persons here to receive long essays about 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 103 

the other world, and transmundane life, from spirits who have 
never, or scarcely, been there at all, and really know no more 
about it or its mysteries than some newspaper traveller, whose 
voyages were all made in his library, but who in reality was igno- 
rant of the countries he attempts to describe ; or a Louisiana 
Kedjin of the Milky Way. These roving spiritual gentry are they 
who delight to make spectral appearances, to fright the souls of 
fools and cowards ; who are in raptures when they can infest and 
obsess another class of people ;. frequently so sapping their ner- 
vous system as to make life itself a burden. But this obsession 
and possession is no new thing, for spiritual infestation is, and has 
been for ages, quite too common. It comes of resigning the Will, 
and is followed by all sorts of vagaries and madness. Perfectly 
sane, healthy, normal, and sound media are as rare as white black- 
birds. I know hundreds, but cannot point to one who is not either 
full of angles, broken-hearted, forlorn, and world-weary, or else 
badly diseased in body, mind, or morals, — sometimes all three at 
one time, — and all from obsession ! This fact of infestation 
ought alone to have demonstrated the post-mortem life of human- 
kind long ago, for every age, since the dawn of civilization, has 
been familiar with it. What else were the oracles of Delos, Del- 
phos, Dodona, and Phrygia? What else the demoniac possessions 
of Christ's time ? What else the Obi and the Voodou spells of 
Africa, the West Indies, Long Island, and New Orleans? What 
else the secret mummeries of the Druids ? And what else is the 
practice of modern mediumship ? for from the lips of its oracles 
you hear divinest teachings, and the next hour ribald curses and 
most awful blasphemy ! Why ? Because the unfortunates are in 
the merciless grasp of the exuvia of the spiritual worlds — the 
larvae of the starry skies. To all such, God himself thunders, 
" Break thy chains ! Be a Woman, or a Man ! " And they can 
be neither one nor the other until the chains are broken. 

The Orientals called, and still call, all such earth-infesting spirits 
Ghouls, that is to say, Vampires, or life-suckers, and too much 
care cannot be taken to guard against their devastating inroads. 
The rationale of the whole matter has never been explained, nor 
would I stop to do it now, were it not a bounden duty. That ex- 
planation is perfectly simple, and measurably relieves the class of 
spirits referred to from the awful charge of unmitigated malig- 



104 AFTER death; 

nancy generally laid at their doors, so to speak, by both Oriental 
and Occidental writers on the subject. 
* I have already stated that on the surface of the Spiritual Zones 
every essential requisite for sustaining spiritual beings has been 
provided by a beneficent God. Spirits, like mortals, must subsist ; 
for all activity engenders waste, and this waste must be provided 
against. Let a healthy person here sleep with a diseased one, and 
the tone of the first will fall and the other rise, simply by the 
transfusion of magnetic life and vitality from one to the other. 
Now, within our atmosphere, no spirit can find the magnetic condi- 
tions required to sustain their activities, and therefore they fasten 
like leeches upon all such sensitive and approachable persons as 
are accessible to them. Of course the victim is at first aware of 
the possession, and the spirit forthwith begins to flatter the vanity 
of the medium ; puffs him or her up to believe in some most won- 
derful and important mission or other, and, in order to keep good 
hold, frequently simulates the mighty dead ; and thus we have any 
amount of Caesars, "Washingtons, Lincolns, and even Christs and 
Gabriels, who pour their sickening flux of words into the ears of 
silly people, through the lips of poor victims, — to their own vanity, 
— and the play generally ends with suicide, insanity, domestic 
trouble, elopements, divorce, or early graves. Now, on the mag- 
netism of such victims these spirits live, exactly as " Grandma " 
lives on little Julie, her grand-daughter, who sleeps with her ; as 
David lived on that of the virgin whom he knew not ; and as 
white-livered consorts live upon the vitality of their mates in what 
passes for wedlock or marriage, in these dismal ages ! 

" But," the reader says, " all this is evil ! Why does God per- 
mit such atrocious wrong to exist, and allow these wandering 
ghouls to play such a dreadful game ? " 

To which my reply is, I do not know ! Rum-making, perjury, 
war, rape, lying, murder, and ten thousand other things, are, in 
our view, most decidedly wrong, and yet God, for some, to us, 
inscrutable purpose, permits them to be. But, be that as it may, 
one thing is certain : neither the ills named, nor the infestations, 
can be gotten rid of without some conflicts and trials. None of 
us can become better from mere outside pressure, and that virtue 
that cannot take care of itself is rather poor stock ! All freedom 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 105 

must be self-achieved, else it- is not freedom. Begin at borne ! 
That's the point d'appui I 

Question. — " This is decidedly interesting, sir, and as you seem 
willing to share your knowledge with us all, pray tell me if the 
spiritual world, per se, is, like ours, subject to the law of gravita- 
tion?" 

Reply. — In a measure, yes ; but of course not to the extent that 
this globe is. Neither the spirit worlds nor their occupants are al- 
together imponderable, but have sensible weight, — bulk for bulk ; 
the difference between them is about two thousand eight hundred 
times less in weight there than here. You, who weigh one hun- 
dred and eighty pounds on the planet, will not balance even one 
pound there ! 

Question. — " How do we get there, did you say ? " 

Reply. — As an almost universal rule, the exceptions being 
stated before, the newly dead are come for, met, and conducted by 
loving friends to the polar river already described. Sometimes 
they are conscious, sometimes not ; and upon its ascending elec- 
tric billows they recline, but do not sink therein, any more than a 
bubble sinks on the surface of a brooklet. Calmly, tenderly, the 
friends place themselves upon the current, the head of the newly 
dead one pillowed gently upon a loving bosom ; and thus, in a very 
brief space of time, and without jar or disturbance of any sort, 
they are jo}^ously transported to the ever-blooming and fadeless 
shores of the higher and the better land ! 
14 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SPIRITUAL RIVERS — HOW WE GET TO SPIRIT LAND — SECTS IN HEAVEN-^- FAIRY PEO- 
PLE — THE COMPLEXION QUESTION IN SPIRIT LIFE — THE LANGUAGES USED IN SPIRIT 
LAND — AGE IN SPIRIT LIFE — THE QUESTION OF RELATIONSHIP IN SPIRIT LIFE — 
OUR OCCUPATIONS THERE — OUR NAMES IN HEATEN — NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN SPIRIT 
LIFE — GOOD PETER COOPER, THE MILLIONNAIRE — SUBSTANCE, FOOD, DRINK, CURIOUS 
— VERT — "FREE LOVE" — SINGULAR. 

This river debouches into a wide gulf-lake, running on a line 
with the zonal equator. The upward flight is arrested, and the 
new-comer — and there are tens of thousands every day — is met 
upon the glowing shore by the dear and loved ones gone be- 
fore ; or, if there be no such, as is often the case, then by some 
pitying souls who know the life you have led, and either sympa- 
thize with, or commiserate you. Perhaps, and likely, it will be 
your mother, sister, husband, wife, or lover, who awaits your 
coming, — 

" And oh 1 the rapture of that meeting, 

Of that blessed spirit greeting, 

Is unknown to mortals ; they can never, 

Till they pass the dark, deep river, 
That divides their world forever, from our own, 

Comprehend how hearts once blighted, 

In a world with sin benighted, 
Are forever reunited, on the shore 

Of that river brightly glowing, 

From eternal fountains flowing, 
Where the trees of life are growing, evermore." 

This vast lake or sea is one of two special ones, at either side 
of the zone. They are connected ; and one discharges a river to- 
ward the earth, as the other receives one therefrom. But each of 
these streams has returning eddies, or side currents, quite avail- 
able for passage to or from by either river. As a general thing, 
when a person wishes to return to earth, he or she repairs to the 
magnetic polar stream that ever sets its tide toward the land of 
their travel and travail, and the swift current speedily bears them 

106 



AFTER DEATH; OR, DISBODIED MAN. 107 

hither. When the river reaches the earth it debouches, and spreads 
upon the surface thereof; and when ethereal people arrive they 
quit it, and either transport themselves whither they please, by 
means peculiar to themselves, described elsewhere, or else walk 
upon the air, which is terraced or laminated so as to permit it ; or 
they can pass through any part of it, and against the strongest 
wind that ever blew. In my " Dealings with the Dead " I have 
explained that mystery, and also how a spirit can brave a storm 
of rain and not be inconvenienced thereby. 

" Do sects abound there? " 

Most decidedly they do. You will find people of all shades of 
religions faith and opinion in all the lesser societies ; while in the 
higher there exist countless brotherhoods, no two of which are ex- 
actly alike in those respects ; and it is only in the highest that 
perfect unanimity prevails. But there is no rancor generated be- 
tween people on account of these dissimilarities ; for they all know 
that while truth and God are real, they are also kaleidoscopic, and 
except in cases of absolute fusion of individualities, is it possible 
for two to think exactly alike, because each is compelled to see the 
truth from his own peculiar stand-point, and through his own 
organization. The law of individuality is acknowledged and 
respected throughout all the higher ranges of transmundane ex- 
istence. 

How we live there will presently appear. 

The size of an ethereal person is, but not invariably, such as, 
were they solid substance, would balance from eighty to one hun- 
dred and fifteen pounds ; albeit, there are in some of the spiritual 
zones very tiny people indeed, who, having been occasionally seen 
by earth-dwellers, have been christened Fairies, Fays, and Ban- 
shees. There are others ten feet and over in height ; while on 
the farther zones there are people wholly and totally dissimilar in 
all respects from those of this solar system. Here is the law: 
Large earths produce large creatures ; small earths, small ; and if 
our moon's inhabitants ever reach the human plane, they will not 
exceed the height of thirty inches ; while the people of Jupiter, 
Herschel, and Saturn, are a great deal larger and finer than our- 
selves. The size of the planet also determines the law of duration. 
We. are old men when Jupiterians are mere boys ; and their school 



108 after death; 

children would laugh at the mental imbecility of our profoundest 
savans. Pope was truly inspired when he wrote the lines : — 

" Superior beings, when of late they saw 
A mortal man unfold great nature's law, 
Admired such wisdom in an earthly shape, 
And showed a Newton, as we show an ape." 

1 An ethereal man cannot penetrate solid matter while organized. 
"Were he enclosed in an iron coffin he would pass through its pores 
as sweat through the cuticle, re-form on the outside, and consider 
it a very unpleasant experiment, not to be repeated. An ethereal 
man could not be annihilated by any means whatever, even though 
blown from a thousand cannons. Such a thing would shock a 
man, and incapacitate him from thinking clearly for a time^ but 
that is all. 

► " Do we retain our physical characteristics, as hair, eyes, and 
so forth, in the other life? " 

To a certain extent, as to general form of features, save that de- 
formities are toned down. Our red and other colored hair here, is 
of a general flaxen hue there ; it is long and flowing ; we are 
beardless, except we choose to assume the contrary appearance, as 
is the case with Persians, Arabs, Jews, and Northmen. Fat men 
lose their fatness ; negroes lose their short, crisp, woolly hair, and 
they are no longer black. Nearly all of us there are of a beautiful 
olive-pearly tint, with the peach-rose in either cheek ; our eyes are 
both light and dark, but not violently so ; the tall man becomes 
shorter ; the stumpy man or dwarf increases in stature ; and the 
lank skeleton attains to beautiful and harmonious proportions. 

In reference to vocal language, I reply : It is used. At first we 
speak in our native tongues ; but rapidly learn others, because 
hearing the sounds that convey a man's meaning, and at the same 
time both feeling and seeing his thought, we soon acquire what 
otherwise would necessitate long study. The tendency of all 
vocal speech there is towards a universal Phonetic system, and in 
the upper grades such is universally used. But there also we 
have two other modes of conveying information : one of which is 
through reading ; the other, by conforming our features to the re- 
quired expression, which is readily understood by the developed 
initiates. 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 109 

' I will take occasion here to saj' two things. 1st. That children 
grow up there as here ; and 2d, that females generally, though not 
universally, appear to be about twenty-four years old, some 
younger, and a few choose to appear as matrons of from thirty- 
five to fifty years. Men generally appear of from thirty to forty- 
five ; while occasionally one is seen a la patriarch, and many as 
mere lads. A few of earth's celebrities are famous there ; not be- 
cause they were kings and generals, but by reason of the parts 
played in the moral, political, and religious worlds. Thus, Gau- 
tama Buddha, Pythagoras, Luther, Plato, and others, including 
the Moslem Chief, are the centres of great attention and at- 
traction still ; but I never knew of such a person as Christ 
being seen. 

The standards of beauty vary there, according to the tastes of 
different constitutions, nations, and customs. Purity and intellect 
generally are the criteria ; for, as these are possessed, they are re- 
flected on the countenance. 

It is asked if there are books there ; and I reply yes ; but not 
such as we have. They are on scrolls, not pages, and are picture- 
written, not type-printed or morocco-bound. There are libraries 
to which all who wish have access. 

, Are there kings and rulers there? Yes. But these, except in 
the lower regions, are such by natural, spontaneous gravitation 
and selection. Mistakes are never made, for the reason that the 
right man glides into the right place by a natural process. 

Are nations distinct there ? At first, and on the lesser planes, 
yes ; but soon a great intercommingling takes place, as individuals 
rise from, and gravitate out of conditions tending to isolation and 
non-progress. Whoever would ascertain the condition of the dead 
of a million years ago must quit the boundaries of this solar sys- 
tem, for none from it are in that sphere, and search for them among 
the constellar zones of space, where they exist in myriads. 
> The next question on the list concerns our occupations in the 
worlds of ethereal people. To fully reply to it would require 
not one, but an entire library of books. I can, therefore, give but 
a very general response thereto, as I am but treating of the mere 
second stage of human existence, and necessarily but partially of 
even that. I shall therefore epitomize the several responses there- 
to under alphabetical heads, in order to be clearly understood. 



110 AFTER DEATH ; 

Trusting that the principles herein discussed and demonstrated, are 
well before the reader's mind, I proceed to remark, first : — 

(a) We retain and acknowledge no relationship there, save such 
as have love and friendship for a basis. My father is not neces- 
sarily related to me, merely because he was the nervous channel 
through which I came to earth ; nor is my mother any nearer to 
me simply because she received the monad Me, incarnated it in a 
flesh-and-blood body ; nursed me for seven years, more or less, and 
called me her son and darling. Ties, blood, race, or family, count 
for little or nothing over there ; for it continually happens, as 
said before, that the veriest stranger is nearer and dearer than 
husband, wife, parent, sister, child, or brother ; ay, even than 
those we sometimes believe to be our " Eternal Affinities." And 
one of our occupations there is the study of the laws that govern 
this subject. % 

< Kindred there is based on homeogeneity, not on consanguinity or 
external law. We love those who love what we do, and these are 
our brethren and sisters. Two cannon-balls are not necessarily 
related because cast in the same mould ; nor are people brothers 
or sisters merely because their parents were the same ; for their 
natures may be, and often are, wholly opposite and antagonistic ; 
nor is it unusual to see a coarse, rough, brutal, lowly-organized 
man, and a girl born of the same couple,, who is fine, gentle, sensi- 
tive, intellectual, and spiritual, to a very high degree. Where's 
the relationship ? In what does it consist ? The study, then, of 
psychical law, will afford scope for the best minds in the spiritual 
worlds. 

(6) "What's in a name?" some one asks. A great deal, I re- 
ply. There are long catalogues of names, and what they repre- 
sent, to be learned ; and in one single branch of nomenclature, 
that of botany, we have abundant occupation in the study. Then 
there is architecture, history, algebra, the higher mathematics, 
government, ideology, phonetics, music, melody, harmony, vision, 
acoustics, and ten thousand other arts and sciences to engage our 
attention and occupy our thoughts. Speaking of names, reminds 
me that those given us or assumed here, go for nought in our 
upper homes. There are no John Smiths there ; nor is Mynheer 
Johannes Von der Spreuchtlinsaber any longer compelled to re- 
spond, when hailed by that formidable appellation. 



OK, DISBODIED MAN. Ill 

•» (c) Old names, then, are dropped, soon after our arrival there, 
— albeit, if an earthly sufferer yearns for the ministrations of an 
ethereal friend, whose name might once have been John Truman, 
or William Hardy, his electric summons will reach him in the 
upper land, wherever he may be. Every person's quality is ex- 
pressed upon the features, just as the unspoken thought is mirrored 
on the tablet of consciousness. Like that, too, it can be read, un- 
less, indeed, as is possible in both cases, — but only by a painful, 
continued effort, — the person wills to conceal the thought, or give 
a false impression to the features ; and that general quality, or a 
peculiar trait determines the name by which the person will be 
known. Now, the combination of qualities and traits are simply 
infinite, and so are the names of the myriads who possess them. 
No two are alike ; no language could express this multitude of 
qualities and specialties. 

That can only be achieved through and by the celestial phonetics 
of the spheres. For instance, Olive Belk, of Janesville, Honey 
Lake Valley, California, was the peerless and redeeming spirit of 
that town, — a gentle, tender, affectionate, and loving soul, — 
qualities expressed in the higher phonetics by the sounds Zoi-li- 
vi-ia ; hence her most beautiful name will be Zolivia. Mary 
"Winthrop may on earth possess qualities, social and intellectual, 
which not only stamped her as a genius, but also made her the 
cherished idol of society. She will therefore be known as Eu- . 
lam-pi-ia, — Eulampia, Greek, Evlambea, Anglice, Bright-Shining 
Light. 

It is not difficult to determine, from a three-quarter portrait, not 
merely the character of the original here, but his status, place, grade, 
order, general occupation, and even name, in the higher country, 
because all this is governed by immutable law ; ynay, and ought 
to be learned here, and is one of the sciences taught there, and 
affords pleasant study and occupation to thousands. I call that 
science Tirau-clairism, as I practise it now. 

(cZ) The vast encircling zone of earth has many small, and 
seven grand divisions, discreted in some respects, continuous in 
others. There is, therefore, so to speak, a geography and topog- 
raphy, thereto ; and here we have another source of study and 
occupation, to say nothing of the sciences of government ; the 
affairs of earth, philosophy, philology, ethics, the laws of beauty ; 



112 AFTER DEATH; 

those of comparative zoology, of learning, theology, theosophy, in 
their less-exalted departments. 

I am speaking within very moderate bounds, when I say that the 
first or lower sphere — that right over our heads — is tenanted at 
any one given moment by not less than three hundred and forty 
millions of times as many persons as occupy earth at any moment ; 
while the same ratio holds good between it and the next above ; for 
the dimensions of each succeeding belt are as great between it and 
the next below, as between earth and the primary girdle. There 
are four beings born on earth, and two die, every second of time, 
from natural causes. But accident, wars, disease, and pestilence 
sweep off additional millions every year. People are, therefore, 
arriving at the first zone at the mean rate of not less than three in 
every second of time ; one hundred and eighty a minute ; sixty 
times, that, or ten thousand eight hundred an hour ; .twenty -four 
times that, or two hundred and fifty-nine thousand two hundred, a 
day ; and twenty-six millions and five hundred and eight thou- 
sand between the firsts of two Julys. 

If here is not food for thought and study, I know not where it 
can be found. 

The departures from one sphere to another are in proportion 
to that vast emigration ; forever settling the question of special, 
and establishing on immovable bases that of, general Providence. 
Here then, again, is food for the mind and time of an archangel, 
much less you and I. 

The seven Grand Divisions of Vernalia (the ever-blooming 
country) are each subdivided into seven minor sections ; and 
while each Grand Division is peopled by one distinct order of peo- 
ple, each of the minor ones has its respective classes and sub- 
classes. Another grand source of occupation : — the laws govern- 
ing the differences between men. 

Let it be understood, at this point, that the graduating qualifica- 
tions essential to advancement from one section or division to an- 
other, consist not in intellectual ability alone, for there, as here, 
are plenty of intellectual wretches, — morally unprincipled people, 
who have not yet learned to respect themselves and others suffi- 
ciently to warrant their transference to better society. They 
must first outgrow their present position and yearn for something 
better. The law of progress depends upon manhood, goodness, 



OR, DISBODIED MAX. 113 

rounclecl-out-ness, character, aspiration combined with intelligence, 
and a cultivated will. Surety, the philosophy and rationale of 
personal purification and reform is no mean study or occupation 
for man, either here or there ! 

V (e) The higher classes and orders constantly mingle with and 
visit the lower, on educational errands, just as sisters of charity, 
lay and clerical, Protestant and Catholic, in the church and out of 
it, here mingle with the low and depraved, for redemptive ends and 
civilized uses. But neither here nor there do the high mingle with 
the low on terms of equality, for, strictly speaking, there is no such 
thing as human equality, save in two respects, — immortality and 
unprovability. Nowhere does the man of lofty mind and high 
moral tone consider the being of low habits and instincts by any 
means his equal or peer. He is willing to instruct and polish his 
unfortunate neighbor. Here again is another vast field wherein 
people occupy themselves in the other life, and a splendid and 
magnificent one it most assuredly is. 

(/) There is an aristocracj^ of mind as well as of wealth, title, 
and rank ; and the former is the true one. On earth artificial, un- 
just, and, in many respects, absurd distinctions, separate men and 
create classes. It often, indeed generally, turns, out that your 
genius lives in a garret, faring sumptuouslj 7 on, fifteen cents' worth 
of poor crackers and worse cheese, with a small glass of exceed- 
ingly mild ale, per diem, while just across the square, a fool of a 
millionnaire, whose only wealth is gold, dwells in a palace, richly 
decorated with all that art can create or wealth procure. I say 
fool, because money avails no man after death ; and when its ac- 
quisition becomes the passion of a life, he neglects all else, and 
arrives there shrivelled aud weak ; is laughed at for his folly, has 
lost all the respect his dollars once commanded, and finds he has 
committed the worst kind of suicide. His house there is poorly 
furnished ; that which he occupies here has its gay carpets, crys- 
tal windows, splendid piano, rich harp, rare books, and fine pic- 
tures, — things he has for ostentation's sake, but which, ten to 
one, he can neither appreciate nor understand. He puts on airs 
because he can, and it is fashionable to do so. 

I am not deprecating wealth because I am poor. I have not a 
dollar of mine own, as I write these lines. I am friendless, save 
by the ethereal ones who are prompting me, and who manage to 
15 



114 AFTEK death; 

find me bread. I am not satisfied with my poverty nor envious of 
the wealthy. I would be rich if I could ; and yet, poor as I am, I 
would not barter my manhood for all the gold of Colorado ; and 
clairvoyance tells me that there exist hills of it there, and that I 
can find it — indeed, I am certain of it. I would do as Peter 
Cooper — great, good man ! — with my wealth. I would make a 
telescope capable of resolving all the nebulse ; and I would put a 
free school on every plantation in the South, that Africans might 
drink at the fount of knowledge ! 

Death is the great leveller who straightens out many things as 
they should be, and rights many a wrong. I know of a man, of at 
least ten millions of dollars, whose food, on silver dishes, is handed 
to him by a servitor in livery, wko, if report be true, knows more 
of real knowledge in five minutes than his wealth-laden master 
probably will in a century* The man shares his six hundred a 
year with those who know hunger ; the master seldom bestows a 
loaf of bread. When death shall touch them both, I had ten 
thousand times over be honest John Thompson, the waiter, than 
Old Ingots, the possessor of millions ; and yet, money is an 
enormous power, — is not to be despised, — only the unworthy uses 
made of it. 

Here, then, we have social and domestic economy ; wealth and 
its uses ; the psychical results on men and nations ; the grand 
study of the ways and means to remedy the error of ages ; and a 
thousand contingent and cotangent questions and subjects for our 
occupation in the land of disbodied souls. 

(g) To return from this digression, wrung out of my heart and 
pen, let me observe that the lower societies of mankind — by which 
is not meant the vile or wicked merely, but the ignorant, savage, 
ultra-barbarous sons of earth — occupy a broad area on the edges 
of the zone. Between these edges and the next interior country 
there are given routes of travel ; as there are also between the two. 
edges across the zonal continent. People there, as here, improve 
by making vogages, and visiting countries other than their own. 
There are no railway or steamer fares to pay, and millions find 
profitable occupation in visiting and studying the habits and cus- 
toms of other people. 

(7i) The quality (and here I remind you that I am only treating 
of the first zone) of the grand divisions improves and ascends as 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 115 

you approach the centre ; and the highest societies, the supreme, 
or solar section, occupy the zonal equator, whence the people who 
compose it, after finishing all they can accomplish there, take their 
flight to the belt or sphere above. There they settle on the edges, 
as the savages did on theirs ; for the lowest society of the next 
sphere was the highest of the one below. 
* I have already stated the universality of the sex-principle. It 
obtains of Divisions and Sections, quite as generally as it does of 
persons, for each division and section has its north and south 
sides, peoples, degrees, and societies, — in other words, its male 
and female principles, and it is by the attrition, contact, fusions 
and interactions of these two that progress is achieved and real 
advancement made. There is no part of God's universe where 
these principia do not operate. 

The system of government on the zone whereof I have been 
treating, and, indeed, of all others, is fashioned on the model of 
our solar system. The grand equatorial division is as a Sun, which, 
through its agents, irradiates its mental and ethical warmth and 
light over the entire sphere ; and its neighboring divisions may be 
compared to the planets, moons, and comets of the system, — 
they being tributary, and in some sense dependent upon it. 

This law of solar harmony, be it known, obtains throughout 
God's illimitable universe of matter and spirit, so far as known to 
man, or revealed by mighty spirits. Now, here is again food for 
study and occupation — the laws of solar and social order ! — 
themes fit to engage the intellect of seraphs. 

(i) We come now to special topics. 

The first portions of the first grand division, the edges, are devoted 
to, and peopled by, the most imperfect tribes of humankind — the 
savage and canmbalic men and women of the earth ; those that 
are just immortal, and no more, — that is all; those who are but 
a touch-grade above the beasts of the forests, or the giant apes 
and troglodytes. 

Here are to be found the Kaffirs, Jaloffs, Mandingoes, Hotten- 
. tots, Bosjesmen, Diggers, Marquesans, and others of similar grade, 
who live for long ages pretty much as they did before they went 
there ; that is to say, pretty much as they please, — a wild, semi- 
clownish life, without law, save that of nature ; for reason, the 
Godlike attribute, is still latent in them. True, they are taught ; 



116 AETEK DEATH; 

but their education is a very slow and tedious process. They sel- 
dom realize that they no longer inhabit earth, though sensible of a 
change of localities. The scenery around them corresponds to 
their condition. It looks tropical, and the trees and other flora are 
in accordance therewith. All spiritual beings subsist on, or are 
invigorated and refreshed by, the atmosphere inhaled, and subtle 
auras absorbed, as well as by proper food. . These people gather 
and consume fruits of various kinds, which, by God's bounty, 
exist there as previously on the earth. When one at first sees 
such persons there, it is hard to believe that one is not dreaming, 
or in some unpleasant vision. Yet, it is true such men are there, 
and will, in the course of ages, develop out and up. The first 
immortals must have been quite as low as these are, and yet not 
one but has long since taken his flight from the equatorial division, 
and is probably now on the solar zone. Wherever there is a soul, 
that soul must grow and expand ; indeed, I deem it far easier for 
one of these sinless ones, as they are, to grow to full manhood, 
than for many a man who proudly walks earth's streets to-day. 

The reasons are self-apparent. Their habits and customs are in 
strict accordance with savage rules, save that cannibalism and 
flesh-eating are simply impossible, — they cannot tear each other 
apart, or bite and cut to pieces. This at first surprises them. The 
fact they realize, cannot account for, and finally give up trying to, 
and take to a frugivorous diet. 

Marriage, either mono or polygamic, is of course unknown ; but 
an indiscriminate freedom in its functions is the universal rule. 
Of course, there can be no palpable result to this ; for no children 
are born there, but they do not comprehend the fact. They im- 
agine different results, and their females realize their wishes with 
reference to offspring ; but of course not as upon the earth, though 
of that fact, too, they are ignorant. 

When Quisbee wants a baby badly, she receives one of the 
proper grade for her, if such is to be had ; for that whole region is 
presided over by a superior wisdom quite equal to that governing 
higher circles. She find the child by her side ; don't know how it 
got there ; thinks she bore it ; but is mistaken, for, in fact, it is 
one just dead in Kaffir-land ; or an emigrant from the slums of 
Canton, or the banks of the Zambezi, or Niger, just sent home by 
having its brains knocked out for coming when not wanted, — a 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 117 

custom, although the modes may differ, quite too common out of 
Kaffir-land, or Canton ! 

This youngling she accepts as her own, and rears, until the 
young thing is strong enough to be removed to a better nursery, — 
for many such there are in all parts of Spirit Land. Here behold 
the Divine economy ! See what a study of God and his good- 
ness ! 

While speaking of children, I beg leave to remark that, of all 
subjects that can possibly engage our attention here, not one — 
save that of marriage — is so deeply important as that of the 
education of children ; and of all sights that burst upon the 
enraptured vision of the seer, none are so electrically joyous and 
happifying as those of the schools of the Morning Land, where 
countless millions of children are being trained and educated. 
There are more people in the spiritual country who went there 
while children than who passed away at maturity ; for there are 
billions who went there before their second year of life, and these 
are all graded and sent to those peculiar schools and nurseries 
for the which, upon a true analysis, they are found to be best 
adapted. How good is God ! What a blessed heart-warming 
truth is this, — that even all these little ones are loved and 
tenderly cared for by the peerless Lord of ineffable glory ! Our 
royal King, — our beneficent God ! 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE HEAVEN OP SAVAGES — FIRST GRAND DIVISION OP THE SPIRIT LAND — MUSIC TIP 
THERE AND HOW MADE — HOUSES, TOWNS, CITIES, IN THE UPPER WORLD, HOW 
BUILT, AND OF WHAT MATERIAL — BREATH UP THERE — THE FEMALE THERMOMETER 
— CURIOUS, BUT TRUE — A WONDERFUL SPIRITUAL FACT — JEWELS THERE — SCHOOLS 
IN HEAVEN. 

There are places and persons, hospitals and societies, to whom 
and which are assigned all the poor little murdered ones, whose 
bodies choke the sewers of London, Paris, and Vienna, and which 
fester in the docks of more than one American city, — a dreadful, 
but a common crime, and one only to be prevented when mankind 
begins to learn the value of a human being, any human being, 
whether " legitimate " or not, and provides against that kind of 
wholesale murder, as Russia does, by foundling hospitals and 
Magdalen retreats. Russia, where motherhood is not counted a 
crime, second only to murder, unless — unless — well, let us say 
nothing further on that, and pass on. ... I repeat, the low 
people of the section just treated of do not know how they came 
there, until their minds become expanded, and they pass its limits 
on their upward way. People find abundant occupation in the 
study of the laws of psychical development and soul growth. 

(J) The next section of that grand division is a great improve- 
ment on the first. It occupies more surface ; is greatly diversified ; 
is higher, both in reference to the scale of perfection and the equa- 
tor. The fauna and flora are less coarse and rough, corresponding 
to our semi-tropics. The fruits are finer ; the forests less dense 
and uninviting ; the atmosphere is much more agreeable. The 
inhabitants are still quite coarse and low, but far less brutal and 
gross than in the former section. It is mainly peopled by Kanakas, 
the ruder Negroes, Esquimaux, Finns, the refuse of China, Tartary, 
Japan, India, and certain tribes of aborigines from all four of our 
continents. They are mainly employed in roaming over their ex- 
tensive territories, and enjoying a sensuous, semi-animal existence ; 

118 



AFTER DEATH; OR, DISBODIED MAN. 119 

albeit they already show slight promise of improvement. Passing 
across the barrier, we come to — 

(k) The next section, which, besides containing all the multi- 
tudes, whose moral and mental gravitation has fitted them in proper 
places here, also contains an immense host of Mongols, Tartars, 
Chinese, Malays, Arabs, Lesbians, Greeks, Turks, Poles, Irish, 
Scotch, Negroes, Indians, Esquimaux, English, French, Swedes, 
Finns, Spanish, Russian, Austrian, Prussian, Moors, Kanakas, 
Islanders, and Japanese ; in fact, immense numbers of the semi- 
savage classes of all nations of the earth ; the lower orders of all 
human society, — the nearly ineducable hosts of the world, em- 
bracing vast multitudes of soldiers, miners, sailors, peasantry, and 
other external, coarse-grained people ; large delegations, or rather 
graduates, of whom, rapidly pass on to the next section, because 
they improve their opportunities, and their surroundings are such 
as, when appreciated, to make strong, good, and lasting impres- 
sions upon them, and to beget a more intense longing for further 
improvement. They begin to feel and appreciate the first con- 
scious throbbings and yearnings for a higher and better sort of 
existence. They vaguely, dimly comprehend that they have 
neither obtained the possible acme, nor a final state of content, but 
that there is still much, very much, ahead to be had and labored 
for, — a good lesson for earthlings, that ! 

The scenery in this particular section is a great improvement on 
that of the last. There is more vif or life in the air, precisely as 
there is more physical life on a given area in the tropics — crude, 
carbonaceous life — than on the same space in the temperate zone ; 
and more of the higher, electric, or oxygenic life in the latter than 
in the former. 

The flowing rivers are finer to look at and float upon ; the moun- 
tains are not so high, steep, precipitous, jagged, and uninviting ; 
the light is purer, clearer, better ; the trees, flowers, fruits, and 
birds decidedly of a higher order and standard. There are fewer 
caves, natural or artificial, and far more pretension to order, sys- 
tem, and a sort of rude, weird beauty. The people are clad in 
finer, more comely, and better-adapted apparel ; for God, who 
clothes the fields and fauna, also arrays his human children in fit- 
ting garments, with but an almost unconscious wish of themselves 
or others. 



120 AFTER death; 

In this section some taste, esthetic and normal, in these re- 
spects, begins to be manifest ; and out of these awakened senses 
there slowly rises the vague idea of a power superior to them- 
selves, and nascent energies of their own, that dimly foretell 
greatness yet to be. As a matter of course this feeling, as among 
Moslems, Baptists, Methodists, and other noisy demonstrationists, 
manifests itself in external jubilance, as is the case invariably 
with all barbarous minds, orders, and grades of humanity every- 
where ; for civilized and refined people never make a noise about 
religion, because with such it is a supreme consciousness of unity 
with goodness, and not the effect of mesmeric repletion. It is 
with them a principle, not a mere passion, excitement, or magnetic 
ebullition, as among dervishes, Christian or Mahommedan, and 
people of that class 'generally. Hence worship and God-recogni- 
tion, in that section, is a feeling or sentiment not yet crystallized, 
or intellectually perceived and appreciated. It is sensuous and 
emotional altogether, and in strict accordance with the universal 
law. 

Behold the striking analogy between the physical world without 
and the human world within us. We have a mineral basis or 
sub-strata in the earth, — our granite, feldspar, scoria, upon which 
all the teeming beauties of material life are reared and buildecl. 
It is hard, intractable, impervious, and low. But presently the 
mineral gives way, softens, crumbles, becomes more and more 
susceptible to every active influence ; at length produces, or is 
changed into, soil, from which springs the grosser vegetation, — 
ferns, reeds, moss, grasses. So with man. His heart, or 
emotional nature, was as solid stone ; his religion mere existence ; 
but presently he begins to crumble, soften, and to yearn toward 
something better, higher, fuller. His was a vegetative life with- 
out and within ; but by and by he grows, refines upon it till a 
degree of beauty is reached and grasped. Look at earth once 
more. The animal succeeds, or is an outgrowth of, the vegetable ; 
and as comes the animal on earth, just so man also reaches a plane 
correspondent thereto, namely, a purely sensational religion ; 
and even as animals mark a scale from perfect docility to the 
utmost ferocity, so with man's religion at a certain stage of 
human growth ; — now in the ark, devoutly praying ; then trying 
to propitiate God with sacrifice, self-denial, and burnt offerings ; 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 121 

and anon burning men and women to his glory, at an auto-da-fe; 
this day petitioning " Our Father," and to-morrow whetting the 
knife for wholesale butchery and indiscriminate massacre ! " Thy 
will be done ! " in one breath, and " Death to the Heretic ! " 
in the next. Presently he refines on that ; sees his error, and, 
after a time, quietly corrects it ; and bigotry, no longer possess- 
ing discretionary killing powers, quietly murders Religion to 
frighten fools with her ghost. 

Again : The earth produced intelligence, as succeeding sensa- 
tion. So also hfinian religion transmutes, changes, grows, ex- 
pands, advances, ascends ; the lower classes of human kind still 
cling to more or less modified sensational forms, and boast 
loudly of Methodism, Baptism, repentance, regeneration, justifi- 
cation, love-feasts, revivals, hell-fire, the hoofed and horned 
devil, a pregnant maid, fatherless son; a grand auto-da-fe — that 
of Calvary — a judgment-day, vindictive God, physically enforced 
moralism and virtue, with ten thousand other infantile crudities. 
This is a transitional stage of human growth ; for very soon the 
intellectual phase begins, and we have all shades of religious 
opinion, from intellectualized sensationalism, to sensational 
intellectualism, shading away to an utter denial of all but 
pure material religion, like that of the late Calvin Blanchard 
— (a sensual devotee, whose worship was incarnate lust) — 
Fourier, Pearl Andrews, Owen, Cabot, and Brisbane, — mainly 
visionaries, and all but the last named wholly unpractical ; as 
well as the systems of many sound and great reformers, who, 
seeing new truth, hastened to proclaim it from the house-tops, that 
all might hear and be saved, — not from a blazing hell, or the 
clutches of an imaginary devil , but from making more mistakes ; 
the deepest and gravest of which is — false marriage. 

Well, earth's drama still goes on, and she crowns intellect with 
spirit. Lo ! what a change ! Instantly the thirsty army of 
advance drink of the flood ; they abandon sensational emotional- 
ism with all its noise, confusion, shouting, yelling, baptizing, 
love-feasts, dervish-dances, shakerism, free-love platforms, hell, 
damnation, and the devil ; abandon all your partialisms of what- 
ever sort ; quietly bid farewell to all socialisms, burnt-offerings, 
and bleeding lambs, and stoutly lay hold on natural law and cling 
to immortality, — by which I do not meau mere spirit-rapping or 
16 



122 AFTER DEATH ; 

any of that crude stuff, — but I do mean a belief in post-mortem 
existence, so sound and well-based, that it makes a man a better 
citizen instead of a libertine, and a woman a true daughter of 
God, instead of a sly and lascivious wanton. So far the corre- 
spondence ; but, behold ! scarcely are they — this army of advance 
— well-grounded in their new faith, ere nature effects still another 
change. She had given the world minerals, vegetables, animals, 
and man ; she had produced motion, life, sensation, and intelli- 
gence ; but .now she crowns intellect with reason, and has spirit- 
ualized it ; the first effect of which is the birth of intuition, — a 
shining coronet, flashing o'er the whole, — man's ubiquity to God's 
omniscience, — our human much-knowing to his all-knowing. 

This last improvement sounds the everlasting, resurrectionless 
death-knell of all priests, ministers, kings, potentates, and princes ! 
That change is coming, just as surely as that truth exists. Al- 
ready we are — some of us — fearlessly breasting the last waves 
of refined barbarism, trusting to the unerring guidance of crowned 
reason ; fully aware of the dangers of what to many has proved 
a death sea ; for we know all its terrors and all its shoals and 
soundings, but caring nought for them because we have reliable 
charts and skilful pilots who — these clairvoyants — have often 
crossed it, and know much about the Morning Land on the 
other side. The demonstration is complete ; the analogy is per- 
fect. What a sublime study and occupation is here for embodied 
and disbodied men ! 

The people of the section we have now left are just beginning 
to develop the thinking, reflective, perceptive, and religious facul- 
ties ; there is a vast difference between Cuffee and Carlyle ; yet the 
former will bridge it in time, just as the latter will leap the chasm 
between himself and the myriad Cuffees of ages lang syne, — and 
these have just fairly started on the journey. ■ Already they begin 
to appreciate their teachers, and to comprehend their lessons, 
although quite stolid on many points, and indifferent on others. 
Of course their tastes are those of other barbarians ; their modes 
of thought immature and crude ; their customs and habits openly 
disgusting to the refined ; their pleasures nearly all grossly sen- 
suous, and nothing like system or social order is observable. 
Schools of the primary order are established among them, taught 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 123 

by chiefs and assistants from several of the higher sections and 
grand divisions of the zone. 

(I) The fourth section of the first grand division shows us still 
a larger conglomeration of men and nations, markedly higher than 
the last, but yet, compared to what we know of many communities 
on earth, very crude and undeveloped. The numbers and extent 
of area have been constantly enlarging and increasing as we have 
ascended and gone toward the equatorial division. The people in 
this fourth section are like the leaves of the forest. The country, 
in appearance, is greatly finer there and superior to the last pre- 
ceding section. There are here immense lakes, rivers, seas, and 
mountains, trees, valleys, and rolling plains. The people no 
longer live so isolated as before ; are generally nomadic, but 
occasionally live in apologies for towns. Their clothing is neater 
in shape and outline, but is of high colors, crudely matched, and 
rather flaunting and fantastic. Towns and villages begin to 
appear, but not orderly or beautiful ; still there is apparent, in 
all the people and their surroundings, quite palpable evidences of 
a yearning and striving for man and womanhood. The sense of 
shame is decided and pronounced ; they have scented the fruit of 
the tree of knowledge, and begin to have vague longings for a 
taste of that which grows upon the (mental) tree of life ; — they 
want to eat of it and live forever, — free from certain disabilities, 
and obstructing influences, — for the better self-hood is strongly 
seeking for expression. Emulation and taste are beginning to 
display their power in moulding character ; an undefined ambition 
begins to spur them to something like sustained mental effort, the 
effect of which is a sort of envious competition for the general 
good opinion. 

The divine idea of music here, also, for the first time, comes to 
the surface, as a prophetic thing, and is hftarcl with strange, wild 
delight by those who succeed in producing it, and by others, who 
forthwith endeavor to imitate, equal, and then surpass it. This 
music is vocal, — not words, but sounds, produced by humming, 
croning, droning, and gurgling ; and it is, of course, crude, sharp, 
angular, hissing, guttural, and uncertain, — rude and harsh to 
ears refined, but the quintessence of melody, and exceedingly 
delightful to themselves. All things, mundane and ethereal alike, 
are comparative, and doubtless there are those in some of the 



124 AFTER death; 

" spheres" who, listening to one of our finest concerts or most 
delicious operas, would wonder what we were grieving about ; or 
possibly mistake our sweet and dulcet strains and notes for the 
harsh filing of dull-set saws. The sounds alluded to above are 
made in the throat and chest, and some of them, when first heard, 
are quite novel, startling, and moving ; in many respects remind- 
ing one of the Arabian and Turkish music which I, and others 
have frequently listened to in Cairo, Smyrna, Beyrout, Constanti- 
nople, and Jerusalem. Especially is there a close resemblance 
between portions of it and that very peculiar oriental female cry, 
known as the Ziraleet, — a prolonged, sharp, shrill sound, pitched 
in C, and that cuts its way through the ear, as a barbed arrow 
does through the flesh. And yet out of that shrill seed grows the 
sublimest musical harmony of lofty seraphs. 

In that section, also, custom rises to the dignity of artificial 
law,' — rather Draconian in spirit, certainly, but nevertheless evin- 
cing a tolerably fair beginning ; for their civilization is just in the 
bud. All the surroundings of these people are less chaotic than 
in sections below ; and their habits, customs, manners, — every- 
thing, are decided advances upward and onward. It is often 
asked : What possible occupation can an intelligent person have in 
the next life ? and I have just partly answered it. There are plenty 
of subjects to engage our attention ; for instance, with reference 
to the section just described, we have the study of human prog- 
ress, in its relations to final perfectibility ; the laws of Music, 
and the relation it sustains to religion, intellect, and the senti- 
ments and affections, — subjects not quickly exhausted. 

A wide interval separates this fourth from the fifth section. 
They are not restricted within those limits by external barriers, 
walls, or rules, but by the action of inherent principles, that, if 
not already apparent to the reader, will become so as I proceed 
with the revelation. 

(m) Another step onward and upward brings us to a section of 
the ethereal home of disbodied souls, many times more refined and 
genial than the last. Its superficial area and extent is incompara- 
bly greater than that of the section just described. Here order 
fairly begins its triumphant reign ; society conforms to something 
like disciplined system ; sects, societies, tribes, and clans exist ; 
cities in embryo deck the wide-spread scene ; the mountains are 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 125 

less stupendous ; the air more balmy, clear, radiant, refining, and 
exhilarant. Let us rest awliile, just here, for at this point two 
very important, though subsidiary questions and topics present 
themselves, and demand elucidation. The first of these is, " How 
are cities built? of what material? for what uses? — seeing there 
are no climatic influences to guard against, no cooking to be 
done, or anything of that sort ! " The second topic concerns the 
atmosphere ; and, as it is more convenient to me, I propose to 
answer the last question first. 

Ethereal persons (" spirits") of a high grade can inhale the air 
of a low society, and escape injury if not too long persisted in, 
just as a man of high health here may defy an air charged with 
epidemic death, in the shape of disease, which shall sweep off its 
thousands of those less prepared to encounter its devastating 
power. But, let it be distinctly understood, an ethereal person 
of a low grade cannot, for any lengthened period, breath the air 
of higher climes, sections, regions, or societies, because it is pain- 
ful to do so. Every man, woman, or society, there, as here, gives 
off an aura or atmosphere thoroughly impregnated with them- 
selves, or itself, and unless one is in the same plane, of the same 
general grade, and in the same sphere of loves and uses, these 
spheres are unqualifiedly distasteful, repellant, and, in some cases, 
quite abhorrent. 

Put a quiet Quaker into a noisy Methodist meeting, and he is 
by no means the happiest man alive. Put a Methodist into a 
Quaker assembly, and the poor man straightway becomes entirely 
miserable ; for the enveloping sphere constricts his chest, seals 
his lips, chills his heart, and he aches and tingles to get away. 
This law operates throughout the universe, — alike on solid earths, 
and imperial spiritual zones, — the triple law of attraction, affin- 
ity, and repulsion being general in its operations. Familiarity 
with the fumes of sulphur will render them endurable ; but no 
one likes them for all that. Here, we are often obliged to breathe 
repellant spheres ; but there, we can and do escape them. Here, 
we are forced by circumstances to breathe foul airs, moral and 
physical, and we glide along the scale like a woman, tempted to 
sin, who has a gamut of twenty degrees, — zero, two below, and 
seventeen above it, — easily accustoms herself to breathe badness 
through all the stages of dead-heart, ice-heart, zero-ice, cold-heat, 



126 after death; 

indifference, great modesty, shame, attention, sympathy, attach- 
ment, irresolution, vulgar love, temperate love, ardent love, exalted 
love, intense love, passion, extreme passion, culpable passion, crimi- 
nal passion, and the next step is total abandon! This feminine 
thermometer illustrates what I mean by " Spheres," for in each 
of them she breathes foul air, but here cannbt always escape it. 

In reference to the necessity for houses in the upper country, I 
may here say that there, as here, there are times when we want to 
be — and ought to be — alone ; and others when it is not agreea- 
ble to have our sacred privacy intruded upon by the best or dear- 
est friends we have. In the next place, we, there, not being wild 
people, naturally desire to display our civilization, and that is 
clone by and through elegance, taste, and luxury. The upper is 
not a phantom land, but real and palpable. The hills, mountains, 
plains, forests abound, not with material trees, stone, marble, 
gold, silver, and so on ; but with their sublimated equivalents, 
which answer the same purposes there that their cognates do here. 
We erect our buildings in the same general way, save that there 
are higher and more perfect agencies than saws, hammers, nails, 
paint, putty, glass houses, and all that. We do those things in a 
day there that require months on earth. True, there, as here, we 
can build any amount of castles in the air ; but they tumble to 
pieces unless, as here, we plant more enduring substances around 
them. "We keep our houses till we want to get rid of them, and 
then we unbuild and scatter the material into thin air ; for the 
palace is built through a law of will. By that law it is sustained, 
and when that love and will are withdrawn, like sap-life from a 
board fence, it drops apart, and is forever gone. Just so is it 
with our jewels that ornament ; in short, with anything we want 
or need. So much for these mooted points. Presently we shall 
encounter others still more difficult. 

In the section now written of, there are numerous institutions 
of learning, — the first-reader classes of the great university. 
They are attended by millions of pupils, and their instructors 
come principally from the third and fourth grand divisions, — 
themselves being under the tutelage and guidance of teachers from 
those particular solar societies, which make the art of instruction 
a particular specialty. Onward goes the mighty movement, with, 
like a falling body, a constantly accelerating rate of motion. Here 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 127 

we find an uncountable multitude of people, dwelling in large 
cities, and scattered generally over a surface above four thousand 
miles in average width, and nearly as long as the entire periphery 
of the zone. These people represent all the nations of the earth, 
both those that are now extinct here, and those that still exist. 
They are the barbarians, not the savages, of terrestrial so-called 
civilization, — the latter idea being yet a misnomer on the earth, 
and as yet an unrealized dream ; for civilized people will not 
fight, quarrel, get drunk, steal, lie, rob, cheat, swindle, murder, 
go to war, or — worse than all — slander ! 

Here are found immense delegations of the democracy, — hunt- 
ers, miners, hod-carriers, sancl-hillers, boatmen, soldiers, canallers, 
butchers, drovers, farmers, shepherds, planters, and their former 
slaves, serfs, banditti, lazaroni ; together with the riff-raff, scum, 
ruff-scuff, and huge-paws of deserts, wilds, villages, towns, and 
cities ; millions of those who once were murderers and pirates of 
low grade ; people who have been hanged, garroted, guillotined, 
slain in drunken brawls, duels, killed themselves, fallen in unjust 
war, prison-birds, thieves, pickpockets, rowdy politicians, pugi- 
lists, street prostitutes, and others, of the lowest, but not there- 
fore necessarily the worst types of mankind ; for clairvoyance 
reveals the fact that by far the largest portions of these people 
were born in an atmosphere of vice, were reared to crime, and 
were made worse by inhuman treatment, — ■ people crowned with 
the priceless gem of immortality, but so badly situated as to have 
either no moral or mental light at all, or only just sufficient to 
realize that they have done wrong ; with half latent aspirations 
upward, but not sufficient integral stamina to defy, temptation, 
or inner force to stem the downward tide. 

Question. — "What are crimes, in reality ? how do they affect 
those who commit them here, after .death? and what is the effect 
of disease upon us here, after we have died? and can any disease 
here, affect the immortal soul?" 

Reply. — Few more really important questions than these four 
it would be difficult to ask. Crime is graded, and, as said before, 
far oftener results from chemical, electrical, magnetic, and other 
purely physical causes, than it does from " moral turpitude." 
Whatever chemical acridity operates upon the physical brain ; 
whatever redundancy of acid in the blood, alkali in the liver, oily 



128 AFTER DEATH; 

matter in the kidneys, sourness in the lubricating fluids of the 
joints and bones ; the retention of the various secretions ; neglect 
of washing all over; the frequent presence of various kinds of 
"worms in the intestines, liver, brains, stomach, flesh ; animalcu- 
lse in the pancreas, veins, arteries, heart, prostate gland, womb, 
vagina, peritoneum, muscles ; electrical and magnetic insulation 
of any of the nerves ; sanguineous bitterness ; induration of the 
testes ; an excess of lime, iron, urea, uric acid, — all and singu- 
lar, are so many physical causes of what we call crime ; and thou- 
sands of human beings are daily sentenced to long terms of dreary 
duress, who, morally, are as irresponsible as a child unborn, and 
who are fit subjects for hospitals instead of jails. Men are hung 
for deeds of violence justly attributable to worms in the brain, or 
ulcers there. I lately looked into the brain of a woman who had 
been guilty of deliberate perjury, and found the whole brain suf- 
fused with a dull-red inflammation. Morally, therefore, she was 
innocent. I know an editor of a religious paper, who is a good 
man, but from excessive toil liable to periodic attacks of cerebral 
suffusion and undue heat, in which case he damns everything sky- 
high, and swears worse than " our troops in Flanders," or Gen- 
eral T -, who, under like conditions, used to send for Colonel 

B to come and help him " curse those infernal mules." I 

know another man who at the least excitement will fly off into 
violent anger. Congenital inheritance ! Another, the extreme 
vampiral (all take, no give) passionalism of whose wife has 
pulled him down from heaven to hell, — for to that one end 
alone that woman sacrificed him in every possible way, — robbed 
him, stole funds entrusted to his care, purposely made him jealous, 
associated with her inferiors, and with them hatched plots to de- 
stroy the man who loved her dearer than life itself. Finally, 
they drove him from his own house, and, when he resisted, arrested 
him for assault and threats, endeavored to utterly ruin him, and 
did destroy his business. In consequence of all this, he became 
irritable, unsocial, and quite angular, for the constant play of her 
unappeasable scortatory magnetism upon him at length produced 
an extreme feverish tenderness and inflammation throughout the 
entire cerebellum, and this affected the 1 man's whole nature. Relief 
could only come from death or separation. He resolved upon the 
latter. The vampire returned to her Louisiana swamps to carry 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 129 

on her destructive war, and the man was cured and again began 
to climb the ladders of thought God planted in the world. 

Now, when people thus physically disturbed are also magnetic 
sensitives, the cases are ten times worse ; for not only are they 
subject to Jits and spells of moody gloomery, but during the 
paroxysms are entirely open to, and nearly defenceless against, 
the life-depleting attacks of the vampire host of spirits already 
described in these pages. But such, and all similar victims to 
disease, escape hereafter the moral pangs of other criminals, be- 
cause it is clear that they are, like young children, wholly irre- 
sponsible for conduct that, under other conditions, would be repre- 
hensible, and merit proper correction. 

Some diseases here leave long-enduring impressions or effects 
upon us there, entailing sadness, — as in cases of consumption. 
Irritability and impatience of restraint, contradiction, and teach- 
ing accompany for a time the victim of dyspepsia. The insane 
frequently abide in their illusions, sometimes for years, But, as a 
general rule, we speedily recover the benumbing effects of nearly 
all diseases. But to this rule there is an invariable and painful 
exception, — indeed, three exceptions, but the principles underlying 
them are identical. First, the victims of syphilis suffer long and 
most poignantly. Second, those who have destroyed themselves 
either by sexual excess, or total abstinence therefrom, remain 
morbid, restless, unsatisfied a long time, and with them are the 
arsenic, opium, hasheesh, beng and tobacco eaters, rum-drinkers, 
— to excess, — and all who have habituated themselves to ab- 
normal appetites and habits. Third, — and worst of all, — the 
onanists and masturbators often suffer the pangs of concentrated 
agony for long, long years. The reason is that whoso robs the 
soul of its physical aliment, — as all these, and especially the 
last do, — prevents that soul's due normal and proper expansion. 
All know that such is the case here ; and I and other seers know 
what the effects are there. I therefore not only caution the vic- 
tims of this last habit, but I declare it to be what was alluded to 
in the Apostolic days, as the Sin against the Holy Ghost ! It 
saps the vitality of soul, body, spirit, mind, and morals ; makes 
fat souls lean, and, unless its ravages are promptly stayed, and its 
effects obviated, I repeat what I have written before, I had 
rather endure the punishment due to murder, than undergo the 
17 



130 after death; 

strange and horrible penalties to be undergone, as sure as God 
lives and reigns, by those who, by solitary vice, and abuse of the 
sexual system, mar their eternal prospects hereafter. It was 
this discovery in 1854, that induced me to study this class of 
patients, and since that day that study has been my specialty, — 
not solely for the emolument accruing, for I have treated nine in 
ten gratis, — but because that specialty was in the hands of 
empirics, and scarce a respectable practitioner would touch it, 
and yet none are to be so pitied and assisted as these poor victims 
of what passes current as nervous diseases. 



Let us now return to our researches in the world of spirits. 
In the sanitary schools established for the education and heal- 
ing of these sick ones, regular seasons of active work and rest 
prevail and alternate. Emulation and true endeavor are caroused 
by judicious systems of praise and reward ; but there is very little 
censure. In some of these Sanitoria, law courts are simulated, 
cases are made up and tried in due form, dignity, and strict deco- 
rum ; counsel plead on either side, and attentive juries watch 
every point that may be made ; and he is crowned victor who 
gains his cause on the clearest principles of abstract, unequivocal 
justice. 

Debates are also encouraged by their tutors. Bickerings, ex- 
citement, false statements, personalities, and abuse, being strictly 
interdicted ; but all strife must be amicable, all bitterness avoided. 
At their conclusion, the teacher reviews the whole proceedings, 
corrects* all errors that have been made, sets the subject before 
them in the light of truth, as seen from his stand-point ; demon- 
strates the uses of self-restraint, as contrasted with enthusiasm ; 
and the whole has a direct and positive tendency to make them 
wiser, less excitable, and therefore better men and women. 

The people of the section just described, as well as their 
pleasures are sensuous-intellectual, but not advancedly so. 

(n) The remaining portions of this, first, grand division, pre- 
sent corresponding improvements upon all the rest below. A 
higher and more thoroughly scientific system of education pre- 
vails. Worship habitually obtains ; clanship — rather indiscrimi- 
nate — • still exists ; but the lines between clans are softened ; 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 131 

Schools abound on all sides ; life, customs, habits,, modes of 
thought ; the scenery, fauna, flora, atmosphere, are, one and all, 
greatly superior* to any yet seen on our march from the first sec- 
tion to the last of this first grand division. 

The people I am now describing, are in the first degrees, of intel- 
lectual sensuousness, and they begin to clearly understand that 
a man is a vast deal more than a mere bundle of nerves, senses, 
prejudices, habits, appetites, penchants, and passions, — a lesson 
that might with advantage be learned by those in power on this 
earth of ours. 

How strange it is that the idea of grades in the world of souls 
never struck our religious teachers ! and yet, how readily they accept 
the thought when fairly set before them ! That would be a strange 
human society here on earth in which all grades of men and 
women indiscriminately mixed and mingled. No refined, intel- 
lectual, cultured person could possibly be or feel at home among 
the coarse, low, degraded, brutal, savage, and barbarous peoples 
of this globe ; and, retaining all our sterling qualities after death, 
none of us who have become cultured, civilized, and refined, 
could feel happy were our lots forever cast among those who are 
in every sense beneath us. We are not to be thus humiliated. 
There are grades, grooves, places, for us. all, and each child of 
God finds him or herself just in that precise spot for which by 
capacity, organization, and culture, he or she is best and most fitly 
adapted. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE QUESTION OF SEX AND PASSION IN SPIEIT LIFE — AN A.STOUNDING DISCLOSURE 
THEEEANENT — ABE CHILDREN BORN IN THE UPPER LAND? — NEW AND STRANGE 
USES FOR THE HUMAN ORGANS WHEN WE ARE DEAD — THE PHILOSOPHY OF CON- 
TACT — CURIOUS — STILL MORE SO — LOVES OF THE ANGELS. 

Having thus completed my rapid survey of the first grand divis- 
ion, it remains but to discuss a few other topics in order to com- 
plete the present initial revelation of the Spiritual Country. In 
the six other grand, and forty-two minor divisions, man reaches a 
degree of unfolding absolutely beyond the comprehension of our 
loftiest intellects, — attains to power and knowledge of the princi- 
ples of the worlds without and within himself, so great as to be 
inconceivable by earthly minds ; and yet, even at that exalted 
point, his wonderful career is but just begun ! 

In preceding pages I am aware of having mooted a long-con- 
tested point of great importance, promising to recur to it at a 
subsequent stage of this essay. I now do so because the pudeur 
of others has hitherto prevented its just discussion. Strong ob- 
jections will be, and have been made, to the position I am about 
to assume and maintain ; not for argument's sake, but because it is 
an impregnable truth, and one that ought to be revealed and un- 
derstood. 

Proposing to meet this objection fair and square in the face, I 
shall present it in the strongest possible luminous light and lan- 
guage, after which it shall be demolished by the inexorable logic 
of facts, and analogy ; for if God has made a mistake on that one 
point, then, not only does the theory of his perfection fall to the 
ground, but immortality is scarcely worth the having, — that is, 
if we still retain our human nature there, in another world. As 
for myself, I know we do from personal experience, from the testi- 
mony of thousands of others, and from what I see and hear at the 

132 



AFTER DEATH ; OR, DISBODIED MAN. 133 

very moment that I am in this barn in St. Martinsville,* penning 
the lines now before the reader's eye, for those who have passed 
beyond the tomb are at my side, and mine eyes are unsealed to 
the great realities I am, with their assistance, attempting — oh, so 
feebly ! — to describe. If ever a religious enthusiast was justified in 
singing with a verve the following lines, I am without enthu- 
siasm, for daily, nightly, I can truly say and sing, — 

Bright angels have from glory come; 
They're round my bed, they're in my room, 
They wait to waft my spirit home ! 

All is well ! All is well ! » 

" Am I," so goes the objection, " to understand that all the im- 
pulses, tendencies, penchants, desires, and passions, which char- 
acterize us more or less, while here, are retained after our immi- 
gration to the scene of our new activities, on what we call the 
farther shores of time ? To put the question clearer : Are we to 
understand that men and women after death are, even for a while, 
the creatures of passional impulse ? I supposed that we left all 
that behind us ; that the blood-fire alone caused it ; and that after 
we parted therewith we also parted with its effects. Is the fact 
otherwise? or are we still tempest-tossed and passion-driven? 
It has been affirmed, by noted authorities on matters spiritual, 
that subsequent to death the loves are purely amicive, or friendly ; 
in no sense different ; but strictly platonic. In a word, that ama- 
tory passion and the uses thereof end with the grave's edge ; 
that sexual intercourse, or the appeasement thereof, was both im- 
possible and unknown to and in the other world. Tell us, is this 
so or not? If so, why? If not so, why? Still — " 

(o) There ! I think that question could not possibly be more 
fully or fairly put. It shall be as fully and fairly answered, be- 
cause it ought to be. But, let it be remembered that in doing 
this the design is neither to gratify a morbid thirst for occult 
knowledge, or provoke criticism ; but because it is a vital ques- 
tion ; a holy, natural, and pure one, that interests every human 
being, of either sex, and it opens a new vein of philosophy hith- 
erto almost wholly unexplored. For after reading Von Reichen- 

* Where the first edition of this work was written, in May, 1866. Published in 
Chicago the same autumn. 



134 aftek death; 

bach's "Dynamics of Magnetism," the man who is not deeply 
interested in nerveology and the rationale and philosophy of con- 
tact, whether by and of hands, spheres, nerve-aura, the kiss, or 
other modes, is not so keen a student or lover of knowledge as he 
will one day be. Honi soit qui mal y pense ! and let us now pro- 
ceed. 

If a man goes to sleep a zealot, bigot, or fool, I see no good 
reason why he or any one else should expect him to wake up next 
day a perfectly right sort of person, sane and sound in all re- 
spects ; entirely and completely changed, re-made, worked over, 
purified, and crystallized; do you? If a Jersey rogue starts on 
the ferry-boat from Hoboken, I see no reason why, or method 
through which, his nature should have undergone an entire change 
by the time he reaches the dock in New York ; do you ? If Oscar 
or James should happen to be either political simpletons or no- 
ble-hearted patriots in New Orleans, I see no reason why they 
should be either diplomatic chiefs, or black-hearted scoundrels, by 
simply crossing the Mississippi to Algiers ; does any one? Well, 
death is but a ferriage across a rather broader stream. All a 
man's acts are expressions of himself, under more or less pres- 
sure, and consequent distortion, from without. What he does 
under that pressure he cannot be held wholly unaccountable for 
either to God, society, or himself ; but what he is in the long run 
and from his traits alone ; that is, himself, legitimate expressions 
of his present selfhood and organization, — is the result of his 
experience, and in all cases he requires time for modification and 
reformation. Habits are acquired ; they may be conquered or 
outgrown ; but a functional habit, though it may be suspended, or 
distorted, being natural with the man, must resume its action 
when the obstructing causes are removed. But it can be wholly 
destroyed — never ! Suppose a man's eyes are blown out, the 
principle of vision yet remains. Proof: he sees in his dreams, 
and can be made clairvoyant, be his eyes never so sealed. And 
so throughout. 

Now there are those who declare the passion we are discussing 
has its function fulfilled when offspring ensue from its exercise. 
Half the human race laughs at such an absurd conclusion ; for so 
far from being true, that result is but an attendant thereupon, for 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 135 

reasons self-apparent. Its use is triple, generative, equilibrative, 
and expressive. What were human love without it? 

The "Perfectionists" of Oneida have certainly struck upon a 
truth, albeit I differ from their conclusions, because I believe in 
monogamy, — where perfect love reigns supreme, on both sides. 
Well, then, springing from this triplicate function, comes joy, not 
happiness, but an element thereof. 

When the sleeping fool wakes up, and the rogue reaches the 
city, one will still be a ninny, the other a rascal. One must grow 
wise ; the other grow good. The days of miracle are past, and 
instantaneous conversions are — ? Well, death is sleep's twin 
brother. A man may quit this world at the point of a triple- 
edged sword or bayonet, on the field of martial glory, — just think 
of it ! or at the end of a yard or two of good, stout Christian 
rope, — just think of that, too ! or he may die on one of old In- 
got' s satin- velvet couches ; but, asleep or dying, he's the same man 
still, — for it is his soul, not body, or bones, that makes him what 
he is. Death, at most, is but a short slumber ; and no matter 
where, how, or when one may awaken from either, the " man's 
the man for a' that." Man will be man and woman be woman, no 
matter where they be, asleep, awake, or in another world ; in a 
carbonaceous or electroidal body ; they are essentially the same, 
and so remain until modified by a new series of conditions and 
influences. A man carries himself with him wherever he goes ; 
carries all his good and perverted qualities, all his appetites and 
passions, and is quite as much a man on the other, as he is on 
this side, the veil of so-called death. 

At this point, then, abiding more decisive argument, I affirm 
that marital form, in union, essence, rite, and fact, exists in the 
land of souls just as here ; and in the same respect. . The loves 
between the sexes are the same in kind beyond, as here, differing 
only in degree. And it would be a poor Spiritual World, and a 
very gloomy heaven, were it not so. For what else are souls duo- 
sexed ? That's what people want to know ; nor will it do to ar- 
gue that we carry all other parts of us along, but that sex is left 
behind us ; for in that case we were no longer human, but only 
monsters. But, let it be forever known, mutual love decides the 
matter there ; and we win our wives and husbands with something 
better than smiles and money. 



136 AFTER DEATH ; . 

" If this be so. then I suppose that offspring are born to us 
there. If not, why not ? " 

(p) An erroneous supposition : because the human material 
body is essential to the reception of soul monads ; to their in- 
carnation ; to the formation of the spiritual or ethereal body ; and 
an earthly life and experience are essential to its development, 
and to prepare it for the field of future operations subsequent to 
its flight ; and this, in brief, is the why not ! Babes are neither 
begotten or born through marital union there. 

" That is very strange. Such is its purpose here, such at least 
are the results. Two new difficulties now appear. The test of 
woman is her love ; no love is, at least on earth, at all comparable 
to that for her young, — her self-sacrificing love for children. How 
is that gratified in the other life, if offspring is denied her ? Again : 
the purpose and the function of the liver, lungs, and all the special 
pelvic organs are well known. Now, if we carry all ourselves to 
the other world, what possible substitute can there be for the 
procreative function ? Here appears a break in the economy of 
existence, for there is a use without an end." 

Reply. — So far as philoprogenitiveness is concerned, there are 
myriads of earth-sent children to call forth its tenderest display. 
There are also millions of children yet in earth bodies to invoke 
its dearest action. In the statement concerning the new uses of 
the stomach and other viscera, to the effect that they become bat- 
teries generating and diffusing different auras, the answer to the 
first objection just stated is found. The special ethereal uses of 
the pelvic viscera will presently appear. Let it not be forgotten 
that conjugation seldom or never purposely serves the end to wJiicJi 
nature applies it. She steals a march on it, and serves herself 
and us at the same time ; for her part of the mystery is not ex- 
pressly sought by one in a hundred millions of us who use the 
means. 

Offspring everywhere are natural accidents. At this point I 
ask a question in my turn. Do you know ivhy two men shake 
hands ?• Not exactly. Well, it is simply because each imparts 
and receives an odic, magnetic, electric, nerval, or spiritual shock 
or current, all the more pleasurable for the purity and depth of 
the sentiment or feeling that prompts the act. In fact, all con- 
tactual joy hinges on the truth here set forth, whence may G-od 



OR, DISBODIED MA1ST. 137 

pity the unhappily married, in which case there is no contact of 
spirits, and the auras, otherwise reciprocally imbibed, are wasted, 
lost, dissipated into thin air, making people grow old, thin, 
wrinkled, and superlatively discontented and wretched long before 
their time. I have treated fully upon that subject in my book, 
entitled, " Love and its Hidden History." 

Did you ever study or imagine the meaning and philosophy of 
a kiss, — the rationale of contact ? No ? It is because there are 
nerval poles in the lips, as there are elsewhere, — connected, 
telegraphically, through nerves, to the very penetralium of soul 
itself. What are the nervous ganglia, but relays and retorts, 
generating, storing up, and diffusing the electric fluids that flash 
along their filamental wires, telling the soul what's going on in the 
external world, — in the mines, on the mountains, in the valleys, 
over the continents, and through the seas of its material and 
spiritual world of body and its lining? Nothing else. Now the 
soul is a king, having various offices where each separate sort of 
business is transacted and messages received ; nor is the news 
of grief, pain, sorrow, recorded on the same tablets, or in the 
same chambers as is that announcing victory, pleasure, love, 
felicity, good news, and joy ; but when one of these chambers is 
open, the others are partially or wholly closed. News reaches the 
man not only through the senses, but he has telegraphic com- 
munication with vast worlds above and around him, which enter 
him through the brain directly ; for it is veiy true that — as else- 
where quoted in this book — 

" Sometimes the aerial synods bend, 
And the mighty choirs descend, 
And the brains of men thenceforth 
Teem with unaccustomed thoughts." 

Your lukewarm, sentimental, unimpassioned kiss sends a 
platonic message of a peculiar sort to the soul. Another sort of 
kiss despatches a courier to say that all is right and square in the 
filial,' child-loving, fraternal, op parental departments of the great 
republic. Another sort of kiss, external, short, business-like, and 
customary, conveys the intelligence that things might be better, 
deeper, more sincere in the affectional domain. When warm lips 
meet warm lips, rendered odorous by balmy breaths, charged with 
deep desire, then there is let forth a whole batteiy of lightning, 
18 



138 after death; 

that wakes up the slumbering soul, closes all other doors, and 
brings the king down from his couch, not only to see what's going 
on, but to mingle in the scene. Messages are despatched to all 
nooks and corners of the physical continent, and all the bodily 
powers are invoked to the congress of — sex. Then the spiritual 
and chest organs of either and both tiugle again, and all things, 
but love are unheeded and forgotten ; for even death, disgrace, or 
danger are laughed at in utter and contemptuous scorn. But 
when two fond hearts and loving meet upon the lips ; when that 
love is pure, deep, sincere, and right straight from the soul ; when 
it is natural, full to the brim, based on mutual fitness, then, oh, 
then! — the soul, spirit, body, — all 'desire, — are instantaneously 
kindled up into a blaze, — not consuming, but creating, — with, 
to and in, a fervid, fiery, non-exhausting, magnetic glow, thrilling, 
filling, plunging both into a bath of exquisite delight, — a deli- 
cious, delirious, soft, yet almost killing rapture ; a lavement in a 
sea of glory, of supreme bliss ; so universal, so deep, so acute, so 
intense, full, sweet, biting, as to be inexpressible by tongue or 
pen ; compared to which all other joys are tasteless, dull, and in- 
sipid, yet wholly unknown, and unattainable to all who do not 
fully, purely, centrally, and wholly, yet holily love each other. 
Mere fitful, physical, blood, electrical, and magnetic lovers realize 
nothing of all this, because they love not fully, truly ! In many 
cases their wilful waste makes woful want. They must die and 
live again before they get the first taste, or understand love's 
primary lessons ; but up there, and there only, can its deep 
mysteries be fully known, its keener joys be felt ! 

Human love is made sport of in these dismal ages. It is mainly 
regarded as animal ; but that is only one of its phases. The thing 
itself is really divine ; it can only thrive in purity, and that of 
•course is holy. To sum up, then, — the meaning of handshaking, 
the kiss, and other unions, is the realization of contact. Bearing 
this in mind, let us now proceed. 

True marital or conjugal love strengthens ; but mere passional 
or scortatory love is false, consuming, dangerous, wasteful ; for it 
never is appeased, is always longing, easily dies ; and it entirely, 
usually, both maddens and destroys. 

True love is pure and sweet desire, 
But passion— lust— consuming fire. 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 139 

In a love like this last — either in or out of wedlock, — noi 
marriage, for marriage is never desecrated, — all the fire is on the 
surface, in the blood ; and when it goes out just so much life goes 
with it; souls repel, while bodies endure each other; beautiful 
women drop by thousands into premature graves, while men spit 
themselves away in tobacco, fume away in smoke, or drown them- 
selves in fiery baths of disguised alcohol. Real love is a divine 
and sacred thing ; sex, and sex along, is the field and means of its 
divinest operations. I do not mean merely and only the physiolog- 
ical fact, but the mental, spiritual, psychical ones as well ; for 
the mere physics of it is its least part and charm ; which latter 
reside, and are to be sought for, in the spiritual and metaphysical 
demesne of the great human estate. All are not women who wear 
the human shape, nor men that look like the homos. The one's 
masculinity has to be softened down, the other's femininity toned 
up, to proper points, — not here, but in the great hereafter. Let 
this revelation never be forgotten. 

To a greater or less degree, spirits touch when hands are 
shaken ; but in most cases touch merely. In the ordinary kiss of 
friendship, a little more of the two surfaces come in contact ; in 
common marriage, if positive spiritual repulsion on her part does 
not exist, spirits come, at times, a little closer ; but souls them- 
selves not only touch, but actually fuse and interblend, in the 
high, holy, and mystical conjugations of real marriage ; because 
love lies at the basis of our human nature, procreation of the 
species being its lowest office ; procreation of ineffable fo*rms of 
beauty and divine sensation one of its highest. All animals, and 
man, too, outgrow parental affection in time ; the instinct ceases 
with the self-helping stage of growth in the young. In man it 
merges into all-embracing fraternal love. 

The procreative power and functions of earth cease at death, 
and perish, in woman, with the last catamenia. Still she loves 
on as ever ; indeed is then more fully ripe, and clings to her idol 
more tenderly, sweetly, and dearly than ever, there being no more 
fearful risks to run, or terrible price to pay ; wherefore also love 
conjugal is relieved of dread, and is forever untrammelled, in the 
realms of disbodied souls. For this reason, among others, lovers 
know each other more perfectly than is possible here, because no 



140 AFTER DEATH ; OR, DISBODIED MAN. 

drop of poison taints the wine, and fear, the gorgon of the feast, 
departs forevermore. 

Death cloe& not radically change us, and I affirm again that the 
union referred to does constitute one of the lesser, yet full and 
perfect, joys of man's post-earthly life. 

Why should it not be so ? We all know that the fusion of male 
and female spheres constitutes the supremest joy of existence ; 
and that we retain sex beyond the grave, is not only reasonable, 
but is actually true. Why should God unsex us there ? There is 
no reason why he should, and accordingly he does not. I am fully 
aware that the position here taken will be assailed ; but what of 
that? It will still be true, notwithstanding. That all the attrac- 
tion between male and female here hinges on sex every one is 
fully aware, and that the same laws obtain in the realms beyond 
is equally certain and true. 

I have a further revelation in regard to sex to make, but defer it 
till I write the sequel to this present volume. But one thing I 
will here say, and that is, I know that what I have here written 
is true, and that when this matter of the sexes and their proper 
relations is fully understood here, misery will take wing and fly 
away forever. While I remain in the body, I am willing to cor- 
respond with friends on these points, and thus can say what I 
cannot now spare time to write or print. Let us pursue the sub- 
ject a little further in the next chapter. 



CHAPTER XI. 

CERTAIN ORGANIC FUNCTIONS IN THE SPIRIT -WORLD EATING, ETC., THERE — ANALYSIS 

OP A SPIRIT ITS BONES, ORGANS, ETC. — THE ACTUAL EXISTENCE OF THE TREES OF 

LIFE AND KNOWLEDGE — HEAVEN AS SEEN MAT 22, 1866 — INSTITUTIONS, EMPLOY- 
MENTS, AND PLEASURES OF THE UPPER LAND DESCRIPTION OF THE PEOPLE THERE 

DEAD 10,000 YEARS AGO. 

(g) Now comes the specialty, — the res gestce of this part of the 
present revelation. The ethereal or spiritual, like the material 
body in some respects, is subject both to waste and want, not in 
its absolute nature, — for as it lives on aerial essences, to a great 
extent, through inhalation and absorption, to starve a spirit to 
death would be like the attempt to handle a shadow, a simple im- 
possibility, — but in what may called, not exactly its organic, but 
rather some of the functional departments of its nature. As said < 
before, there is no foecal waste, micturition, catamenia, bile, 
saliva, tears, exuvia, liquid-blood, prostatic fluid, or semen, — all 
of which, while we are here, are mere material vehicles for the 
essential fluids, aeriform and volatile, electric and magnetic, 
which are generated in the body for the building up of spirit. 
We do not live on food, only on the gases it contains. These are 
extracted from it by the digestive apparatus ; the essences are ap- 
propriated, and the material refuse expelled from the system in 
solid form, as the excreta ; liquid, as in perspiration, and so forth, 
and fluid, as in carbonic acid gas from the lungs and through the 
pores. Of course, then, these vehicles, being no longer needed, 
are dispensed with after death, and the chemical process goes on 
without them ; the gases and essences, necessary in their then 
state or stage of existence, being made by a more summary pro- 
cess, but by the same set of organs, unencumbered with flesh and 
tissue. Waste, effete, and unappropriated essences are there got- 
ten rid of by a process quite analogous to cuticular exudation. 

The question arises here, " What, in the outer sense, constitutes 
a man or woman or child?" Certainly not one of their special 

141 



142 after death; 

parts or organs, any more than a bed constitutes a home ; but the 
unitary combination, — the full consolidarity of the entire catego- 
ries. If a spirit is anything at all, it is a full man woman or 
child, — the whole being, bereft of none of its parts, save only the. 
temporary physical coating of flesh rt once wore. If a spiritual 
person thinks, there must be a head, brain, and organs to think 
with ; it must have hands and legs to use ; and these, it is affirmed, 
we often see, re-clothed for a moment, in the presence of media. 
It sees, and must have eyes ; hears, and has ears ; talks, and must 
have organs, lungs, heart, face, nostrils ; sex, and the consequences 
of sex must follow ; in short, there must be all that goes to make 
up the complete and complex homo. Whether organs determine 
function, or function organs, in either case they were made for spe- 
cific ends, — to serve a purpose in the grand economy, — and that 
end is far from being accomplished in this short and fretful life. 

True, function may be changed, as in some sense is the case in 
regard to the human osseous and muscular systems, for neither are 
needed in the other life ; but while both serve the same anatomical 
end, they become also batteries for the elaboration of electric 
forces there, just as here, only not indirectly then. New condi- 
tions require, command, and enforce new modifications ; but take 
away a single organ, and it is no longer a man or woman who 
stands before us ; it is neither brute nor human, but a monster, — a 
thing without a name in nature, or a proper place within the univer- 
sal realm. But, thank God ! not an organ or facultj r is lost, but 
many more are gained ; not a natural or normal power is withheld. 

In the first stages of man's post-mortem career, all his organs 
continue to act as before, and for a while old habits are retained. 
As he ascends, he refines, and their action is modified. Eating, 
for instance, ceases to be an absolute necessity ; is indulged from 
habit, continued for pleasure, and finally becomes a matter of the 
highest and finest science and philosophy. Here, our best cooks 
or chemists are unable to tell us the precise effect of a given dish 
upon different persons, or the same person under different circum- 
stances ; but there, in the higher grades, all this is clearly studied, 
discovered, and imparted to the teeming millions, who thereafter 
partake both for joy's sake, and to effect certain desirable changes 
or states. 

" What, sir ! Food affect a spirit or soul? " 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 143 

Yes ! I reply. Why do you take champagne ? Is poor De 
Quincey and his opium-eating, then, so strange to you? Have you 
ever read Fitz Hugh Ludlow's astounding experience with hash- 
eesh ? or Theophile Gautier's ? or Alexander Dumas' ? or Bayard 
Taylor's ? In short, have you ever taken a drink of brandy ? If 
so, then you know that matter cannot only act on matter, but on 
spirit also, and through spirit on the regal soul itself. Besides, it 
is not rum, hasheesh, opium, or wine that does the business ; it is 
their essences, their auras, their volatile principles, — soul acting 
on soul. Everywhere man imbibes the essences that keep him up 
and on ; but there he takes food that develops faculties and acts 
directly on him for positive enuu. The tree of life, and of the 
knowledge of good and evil, are not mere figments, but profound 
and solid truths ; though how the world came by them four thou- 
sand years ago is not quite so clear and plain. 

At best, we, and our organs too, while here, are but rude, rudi- 
mentary, and germal. There, as here, the love-organs perform the 
highest office in the spiritual, but not the psychical, economy ; for 
they extract from the system and condense in suitable reservoirs 
that fluid white fire, which when set open in love's embrace, even 
here below, rushes like a whirlwind through man, plunges soul and 
body in a baptism of delight, as it sweeps along the nerves, giving 
a foretaste of heaven, — the most exquisite rapture he is capable 
of enduring. And yet he is coarse to what he will be, and his 
nerves are dross-coated and dull to what they shall become. "We 
sing " Oh, there's a good time coming, wait a little longer," and 
sing truly too. 

A merely sensual person is a brute ; a merely religious one a 
fool ; a merely intellectual one a monster ; but just combine this 
trinity of evils, and you will not have a religious sensual brute, 
but a full-robed man of sense, intellect, and religion ; one only just 
a little lower than the angels. Two evils may neither neutralize 
each other, or make one good ; but combine the three named, and 
you have a seraph in embryo. 

Man will be man all along the line of the culminating ages ! and 
still man when eternities shall have ended and material universes 
toppled in decay ! His life beyond must be triple, — is triple 
there, as here ; ^sensuous, intellectual, religious. He has nerves 
to tingle with sensuous enjoyment, to inhale God's odors, and 



144 AFTER DEATH; 

smell the rich fragrance of his gardens there beyond ; to thrill with 
the kiss, and languish under love and luxury's spells ; a moral 
nature to worship the Adorable One, and riot in good deeds done 
to fellow-man ; and an intellectual power to sound the deeps of 
science, and plumb the mysteries about him. 

What are our dearest memories here ? Are they not associated 
with our magnetic, nervous life ? Unquestionably ! With what 
delight we recur to this dinner, that supper, or the other dance! 
How an old opera tune, or the pleasant refrain of an ancient song, 
will linger for years,- echoing in and through our souls, — sweet rem- 
iniscences of the glorious foretime ! What sighs a bit of satin, 
a leaf, a lock of hair, or an old ball-dress, will bring from the 
heart, sometimes crowned with, " and now I'm old and — dying! 
Heigh ho ! what next, and where then ? " This I am trying to tell 
you! 

How well we remember the stroll in the country, lang syne ; the 
ripe berries, sweet milk, green grass, and fragrant new-mown hay ! 
Ah ! Again, how clearly we recollect the deep, thrilling, tingling 
of our nerves, once upon a time, long ago, long ago, when with 
full and happy, bounding heart, with only one loved one by our 
side, we have tasted the nectar on the lips of our darling, and 
have melted beneath the spell of her dear eye — or his ! And yet 
all this, keen as it may have been, thrilling though it was, is no 
more to be compared to that of the love-joys of the other world, 
than bricks are to emeralds, or cast iron to golden bars, — so su- 
premely felicitous and delightful is contact with hands, and lips, and 
forms of those we love and who love us in return ; for the joy and 
rapture — magnetic, if you please — . that one lover feels even in 
the mere presence of the other, is so full, so complete, intense, and 
deep, that embodied people could not endure it, nervous filaments 
convey, or earthly brains fully conceive. The finest-grained 
voluptuary, the keenest Sybarite here can have no adequate idea 
thereof. Here there is ever a point to be reached, which never is 
attained, — there is dissatisfaction at the best, — there is always 
something wanted ; but over yonder the cup runs over ; we are con- 
tent and cry, — hold ; enough ! 

The senses : Roses emit sweet odors, yet not all the fragrance 
of the Gulistan, ten thousand times refined, can equal the blessed 
aromas that float upon the breezes of the happy land of educated 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 145 

souls ! Color : prismatic hues are fine ; the flash of sparkling 
diamonds transcendently beautiful, while the play of colors in 
polarized light is vastly more splendid still ; but no man of earth, 
save through clairvoyant intromission, — and that is extremely 
rare, — ever yet saw, or even imagined, the superlatively magnifi- 
cent melody of hues and tints, or the ineffable brilliance and 
glorious beauty of the flowers blooming there ! 

Music : Ah, how shall cold human language convey an idea or 
sense of the transcendent melodies, tones, and exquisite sounds 
heard and felt in the upper divisions of the spirits' home, whereof 
I am writing ? It is impossible ! I dare not undertake the hope- 
less task ; and yet it will, one day, be described. Those who have 
listened to Offenbach's opera, La Duchess de Gerolstein, will re- 
member the exquisite orchestral overture to the third act, just 
before Fritz's disaster. Well, I am positively certain that that 
piece of music came to him complete, and note by note, from the 
Spirit Land ! 

Scenery : Imagine your highest ideal spread out before you ; 
deck it with the most regal and imperial cities, every house of 
which shall be a perfect palace ; surround it with parks, adorned 
with trees, whose fruit and foliage shall be unequalled save in a 
poet's or a lover's dream ; let there roam beneath these trees, or stand 
under their outspread branches, parties and groups of loving men 
and women, all of whose forms are fair and faultless ; females of 
transcendent grace and beauty ; men looking every inch as kings, 
of intellect, and royal, gentle manhood ; children lovely as the 
summer sunshine, gay as mountain-birds ; animals, compared to 
whose forms that of the gazelle is dull, tame, and crooked ; and 
when you have all this in your mind's eye, believe me when I say, 
it is no more equal to the reality up there than a cedar swamp is 
to a king's garden ! 

Taste ! Flavors ! Wait till the nectar is quaffed and the am- 
brosia tasted by yourself ; for no human tongue can tell, no pen 
explain them, or even intimate their scale or gamut. 

Touch ! Contact ! Ah, my God ! I have attempted, and may 
again, attempt to describe them ; but as I look at my descriptions, 
glowing and impassioned though the} r be, I am sensible of having 
failed to convey even a dim aud faint notion of the thrilling rap- 
tures and exquisite joys of touch and contact awaiting us all 
19 



146 AFTER DEATH; 

over there, and now being experienced by countless billions who 
have gone before 1 

Buddha's Lokas, the Moslem's Paradise, and the Christian's 
Heaven are conceptions cold and tame, compared with the realities 
of man's home in the higher divisions of earth's auroral zone ! 

There blessed peace reigns supreme ; harmonious melody pre- 
vails ; God, not man, or creeds, or a book, is there devoutly wor- 
shipped ; love underlies, will compels, and lofty wisdom directs all 
movement there. Best and labor alternate ; God rules through 
magic-working law, to which all most joyfully assent ; order pre- 
vails on every hand, and chaos is unknown ! 

(r) Feasts, fetes, parties, balls, operas, concerts, the drama, 
shows, schools, colleges, universities, libraries, museums, lectures, 
theatres, orations, celebrations, congresses, elections, coronations, 

— in fact, everything good that man here enjoys, he also has there, 
in the upper country, with the exception of genuine law courts, 
churches, baptisms, and funerals ; and some of the glorious scenes 
there exhibited immeasurably surpass the most ecstatic vision of 
poet, voluptuarj r , enthusiast, or dreamer. 

Look ! Lo ! at this very moment, as my pen indites these lines 
of this second edition of my work, all alone in my little chemical 
laboratory here in Boston, — where my hours are mainly spent in 
preparing my heaven-given remedies known as Amylle and Phy- 
mylle, for the healing of the people on a new principle discovered 
by myself, — mine eyes are opened, and, cla'irvoyantly, I am there 
and the dearly treasured lost ones look unutterable love, tender- 
ness, kindness, and sympathy into my eyes again, as of yore, in the 
foretime. Oh, how joyful is this inrushing sense that, even as I sit 
here by my lonely table, deserted by all the world because I am 
unlike the people who inhabit it, some one loves me, even the 
so-called dead, and that the blessed ones of Aidenn, who know me 
best, pity the toiler at his work for the world, and afford him 
counsel, and direct his gaze as distantly he catches brief, yet satis- 
fying, views of man's future home, — home ! what a word ! what a 
blessed thought, for lonely ones ! — in glory, to assuage his sorrow 
and prepare the way for The Coming Man — now on his way! 
for he is already born ! — bright and glorious Healer of the Nations 

— Reformer of the World ! 

Reader, come with me and share this vision ; gaze upon these 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 147 

glories — all to be yours — and mine — one of these approaching 
years. Look down yonder sylvan glade, and behold these hun- 
dreds upon hundreds of sylph-like human beings of either sex. 
They are not of our times, or our form of mind ; they are Phoeni- 
cians, Babylonians, Ninevites, Arabs, Persians, Egyptians, Hindoos, 
Moors, Chinese, and some from Central Africa, some from Greece, 
and some from old Etruria, and the site of storied Troy. Many * 
of them immigrated from earth ten thousand years ago, — some 
longer than that ; and very few of them less than half that vast 
period of time ; and yet not one of them looks to be over five and 
thirty years of age ! They have drunk at the fountain of per- 
petual youth and partaken of the fruit of the life-conferring tree. 
The females ! How like peerless queens of Grace and Beauty ! 
What holy love and tenderness beam from every eye ! What 
melting passion dwells on every lip ! How like clouds of lovely 
glory they move along ; and what amazing perfection sits crowned 
on every feature ! And all of them were once poor, weak mortals • 
like you and I ; vexed at a trifle, pleased at a straw ; small in 
spirit, cramped in mind, and warped in soul, heedless of all but 
what the fleeting hour afforded of pain-mixed joy ! Many of the * 
women you see there were once the victims of a victor's whims, 
servitors of his lusts, and creatures of his passion. And yet, for 
all that, they were not ruined, else they had not been where we see 
them now. No guilt lasts ten thousand years ; no hell is half so 
long ! 

Others of them were stately, cruel queens on earth ; filled with * 
envy at another's beauty, and who were accustomed to wash out 
all rivalry in a brook of blood shed from victims' veins. And yet 
they were not damned ; for lo ! they flourish still ! Others of them 
were dusky handmaidens on the banks of Tigris and of Nilus ; but, 
dark and bond as they were, they found their way to Heaven ; and 
so, one day, will all who wear earth's burdens now. So, too, will 
all others, no matter how stained by time and accident, for are not 
they and we in His hands who doeth all things well, and who 
never makes mistakes ? Ay, they are ! Look yet ! How grace- 
fully the pleasant throngs glide through the royal bowers ! See ! 
they are clad in pearly white, purple, azure, green, and gold, while 
zones of cerulean blue, star-flecked, float from their shoulders and 
shimmer in the zephyr's sigh ! What royal, queenly robes are 



148 after death; or, disbomed man. 

theirs, whose voluptuous undulations, as they rise and fall in gentle, 
wavy motion, distract a man's soul, and make him sigh for sudden 
death, that he may take his chances there, — all too forgetful 
that heaven must be made within, and that false coins are uncur- 
rent in the skies ! "When he knows as much, lives as truly, wor- 
ships as sincerely, deals as justly, loves as soundly as they do, he 
will join them there, and not a moment sooner, even though his 
probation lasts five hundred earthly ages. 

What a splendid sight is that we are beholding up there ! How 
ravishing those flowing garments ; how bewitchingly they are 
looped upon the shoulder, and festooned at the bottom ! Their feet ! 
Ah, what exquisite forms ; what sandals ; what perfection of turn 
and outline ! Those taper hands, and slender fingers ; what peerless 
arms, half naked to the upper sleeve, exposing just enough to add 
the last drop of admiration to the already overflowing goblet ! And 
see ! they are adorned and braceleted with jewels that pale the 
diamond in lustre, and exceed the pearl in purity and whiteness. 
These are real jewels ; those of earth are but material imitations ! 
See how they glitter and flash a thousand colors in the soft and 
mellow light of the heavenly aurora ! What faces, necks, swelling 
busts and shoulders ! What superlative, intoxicating love-aromas 
float around them, to entrance us poor on-lookers with rapt se- 
raphic, delirious, entrancing joy ! 

Eeader, you are destined to realize that and more, whereof this 
picture is the crudest sketch ! 



CHAPTER XII. 

EXTENT OP THE UNIVERSE — DESCRIPTION OF A HEAVEN — CURIOUS POWER OP A SPIRIT'S 

EYE ANIMALS IN SPIRIT LAND — A PALACE THERE — LECTURES — STUDIES IN 

HEAVEN LOVOMETERS AND SOUL-MEASURES — CONTENTS OF A MUSEUM THERE — 

MARRIAGE UP THERE — LOVE ALSO — DURATION OF AN "ETERNAL AFFINITY." 

Behold those splendid bands of braided hair ; those magnifi- 
cent curling tresses ! Ah, it is too much ! Look at the men ! 
what kingly dignity ; what imperial grace and ease ; what native, 
gentlemanly bearing ; what clear and lofty brows, where reason 
sits enthroned, and knowledge holds her daily courts ! See what 
perfect shapes ; what soft, yet searching eyes ; what manly, yet 
supremely courteous, gentle, tender bearing. No wrinkles mar 
those features, no corroding sorrow casts its sombre shadows to 
mar angelic simplicity and ease, or spoil transcendent grace. 
And yet, O my brethren, all these were once erring, sinful, sor- 
rowing, imperfect, grumbling, perverted, bereaved, sour, and discon- 
tented people, just as we are at this present hour, and each one of 
them can truly say to each of us : — 

" Remember this, as you pass by, 
As you are now, so once was I; 
As I am now, so you shall be." 

It is a gala day in Aidenn ! They are holding high festival on 
Vernalia's emerald slope, and troops of angels are flocking to the 
scene. It is Shelley's dream actualized and more, for even that 
most noble of poets never imagined supernal glories such as we 
are here beholding. 

No suspicious hearts beat there ; no overshadowing pall of 
indefinable dread — of what, you know not ; from whence, you 
cannot tell — falls on you there; because those above you are 
sinless, and consequently there is no vicarious suffering ; no 
superior agony reflects down upon your head, as is the case with 

149 



150 after death; 

us of earth. Not a line of grief, jealousy, or envy traces its 
wrinkled course upon a single cheek or brow of these, my readers, 
your sisters and mine, my brothers and your own. Not a mark 
of trouble retains its impress, or sets its seal upon the dwellers of 
the seventh section of this the fifth grand division of the sphere. ; 
and yet high, refined, and blissful as they are, they occupy but sub- 
sidiary positions in the grand hierarchy of ascending grades and 
orders ; for there are millions incomparably superior to them, even 
on the first zone, there being no less than fourteen sections there, 
immeasurably above it in all conceivable respects. But even there 
in the fifth division, which I have been delineating, — not describ- 
ing, — for this last, as it should be, were an impossibility, — all 
things exceed the highest conception of us poor, half-developed 
children. 

That some faint idea may be formed of what the universe is, — 
which universe is the grand scene of man's unfolding, and we and 
our spiritual worlds, with all their wondrous perfections, but at 
the starting-point of advancement, — let us glance but for a moment, 
not at revelation, but at the deductions of human science, con- 
fessedly in its veriest infancy* Dr. Nichol, in his work describ- 
ing the magnitude of the power of Lord Eosse's celebrated tele- 
scope, says that he has looked into space a distance so tremendous, so 
inconceivable, that light, which travels at the rate of two hundred 
thousand miles in a second of time, would require a period of two 
hundred and fifty millions of solar years, each year containing about 
thirty-one millions of seconds, to pass the intervening gulf 
between our earth and the remotest point to which that wonderful 
instrument has reached ! How utterly unable is the mind to 
grasp even a fraction of the immense period ! To conceive the 
passing events of one hundred thousand years only, is an impos- 
sibility, to say nothing of millions and hundreds of millions of 
years. The sun is more than ninety millions of miles distant from 
the earth ; yet a ray of light will traverse the immense distance 
in about eight minutes. Long as may seem the distance passed 
in so short a time, what comparison can it bear, — what com- 
parison can the mind frame, between it and that greater distance 
which Dr. Nichol and Lord Rosse absolutely, unequivocally, math- 
ematically demonstrated, would require every second of that time 
to be represented by more than five hundred thousand years? 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 151 

And yet Rosse had only penetrated the edge, — the outer crust of 
space, — and had no more sounded its depths than a boy's sixpenny 
fish-line has sounded the retreating fathoms of old ocean. All the 
vast congeries of constellations yet revealed to the telescope, are 
but the archipelagos, — the island groups upon the bosom of the 
abyss. They merely dot the shores of the material continents ; 
yet all combined is but a bubble of substance floating on the 
shoreless sea of Spirit, — of the JEther, — of the Vortex, — of the 
workshop of the incomprehensible God ! Truly, every immortal 
has good reason to swell the sounding chorus of the " Song of 
the Soul:" — 

" What I was is passed by; 
What I am away doth fly; 
What I shall be, none doth see; 
Yet in that my beauties be ! " 

Return we now again to the primary zone surrounding earth. 
I said it was a gala day with the people there, and that there 
was a nameless, glorious something, around them, — an aura 
of goodness, an odor of power, a perfume of happiness, that earth 
can never give, but to something like which it will one day attain. 
Magnificent and lofty trees, the very movement of whose leaves is 
softest, sweetest music, the melody of motion, are there in rich 
profusion, forming bowers and arched vistas, in and through which 
seraphic people wander, hand in hand ; soft eyes beaming tender- 
ness and love to eyes that more than speak again, and. marriage 
bells are nowhere. Streams of living water ripple through the 
sylvan scene, flashing back a thousand rich tints and hues of more 
than magic beauty, to the stately but unmoving boreal and austral 
suns shining in the heavens. Flowers of rarest conformation, 
whose colors and rich fragrance put earth's fairest products to the 
blush of envy, unfold their glory-cups in countless millions to 
heaven's starry eyes, and yield grateful incense to the mellow air ! 
Bowers of gorgeous shrubs and vines, laden with nectarous and 
ambrosial grapes and fruits, gladden the eye and tempt the taste 
of those who wander by. Resplendent meadows, redolent with 
richest perfume, tempt to glory-walks along the brinks of many a 
silvery brooklet. Magnificently crowned and stately trees, in 
stately groves, adorn the sylvan scene, through which hilarious 



152 AFTER death; 

and joyous crowds of merry children trip and play ; for this 
being a fete day, they are brought thither to have a foretaste of 
what shall be theirs, when the necessary progress has been made. 
Among these glades, seeking retirement, soul-wed lovers stray ; 
and wives and husbands enjoy God's smiles and each other's 
society, — a fashion that ought to come in vogue on earth. 

Splendid palaces tower in the distance, and cosey cottages peep 
out 'twixt groves of greenery, — the solidified thoughts of some 
great soul, or comfort-loving swain. I have stated the process of 
building there ; and here we see the finished result. All these 
will remain just so long as they satisfy their owners' ideals. 
After that they will disappear, and others more ornate or simple 
will occupy their places ; for as we grow our ideals change and 
expand. The world is not the same to us as that of twenty years 
ago ; nor do the things that gratified then, afford us satisfaction 
now. 

The interiors of these cottages and palaces are rich and beauti- 
ful beyond comparison, even though we take old Ingot's parlors 
or Napoleon's dwelling as standards. Gorgeous domes, star- 
fretted as the sky ; magnificent halls, that shame the lanes of 
Sydenham or Champs Elysees ; emeraldine tesselated floors, and 
tapestried walls ; diamond-studded ceilings, constellated and 
astral. Beautiful courts, sparkling fountains, pleasant grottos, 
outvying old ocean's coral caves ; perpetual bridal chambers, — 
more resplendent than all, — divine alcoves -sacred to love's most 
endearing caresses and mysterious joys, are there, and within 
their pearly walls disgust, repugnance, sorrow, sickness, and pain 
can never, never enter. On earth our every pleasure's bought 
with pain ; but not so there ! for in every joy there's nothing to 
be asked for more. * Here all caresses are magnetically exhaust- 
ing ; not so there, for every taste but whets the appetite for, if 
possible, another wave of varied bliss ; and it comes ! and so on 
forever and forevermore ; and each successive draught but makes 
us fitter, stronger for the next. Near at hand is the opening of a 
vista, down which we gaze upon the green, flowery banks of a 
golden-tided river, on whose grassy brink, studding it like pearls 
in a virgin's mouth, are rows of cottages ornee, gemmed with 
climbing clusters of arbutic vines, around which are seen green 
arbors and flower-decked trellises, shedding the most delicious 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 153 

odors, rendering supremely happy the rightly-wedded ones who 
therein lovingly reside. 

Look yonder ! See the coming hundreds from miles and miles 
away ; some skipping through the odorous air like lovebirds in 
the morning, and others gliding along the surface like shadows of 
beauty before the noontide sun ! We need no telescopes there to 
enable us to scan distant objects ; for the air is more pellucid and 
clear than that of Araby the blest. No dull, darkling clouds are 
there to obscure the roseate light, but only glowing crowns of 
electric vapor, tinged and gilded with the most splendid colors, 
and ever and anon breaking into a thousand fantastic and beauti- 
ful aerial scenes, are observable in the bending heavens above our 
heads, far outvying the gorgeous sunsets of most favored tropic 
lands. 

(s) Another arcanum here must be revealed. On earth we 
shorten or lengthen the telescopes we use, else replace eye-pieces 
by those of greater power. We need no such machinery in Ver- 
nalia ; for, by a slight volitional effort, we can render vision sub- 
servient to the ends we seek ; and can so control the eyes as to 
render their powers immeasurably finer than the most perfect 
microscope yet made on earth, or instantly endow them with 
space-penetrating and defining powers, such as put Rosse's tele- 
scope entirely in the background. That instrument has resolved 
many of the nebulae into starry clusters, yet leaves many a dusky 
cloud unsolved ; but I am enabled to say that not one of these yet 
seen clouds are really nebulous, but are, in fact, distant universes, 
far more vast than our galaxy, but which are so far off as to 
appear no larger than an orange. Well, the human vision up 
there is capable of resolving even these nebulous points ; and yet 
there are others at such awful distances across the abyss, that 
Rosse's nebulae are but next-door neighbors in comparison ! They 
defy the powers of a seraph's vision to fairly and completely 
solve. And these nebulae are as thickly strewn upon the floor of 
Space as stars are upon a clear and silent midnight. Talk of 
distance, after that ! 

(ss) It has been said that animals are there. This is true ; not 
merely phantasmal forms, but really living beings, some of famil- 
iar shape, like lambs, gazelles, pet dogs, kids, and playful kittens ; 
and some entirely different, and of strange, peculiar forms and 
20 



154 AFTER DEATH; 

gracefulness. They are in no sense the immortal spirits of ani- 
mals that once lived here ; but are the spontaneous productions 
of all bountiful and prolific nature there. How they originate, 
live, yet do not perpetuate their species, is one of those labyrin- 
thine questions that is quite as difficult of solution as is that of 
the origin of species here. Both facts exist, but the principia of 
their evolution is not easily soluble. One thing, however, is 
certain : All the fauna there typify or symbolize some salient 
and positive love, principle, or affection. There are no reptiles 
or vermin in the regions named ; nothing noxious, dangerous, or 
disgusting, to create a shudder or a qualm of fear ; nothing offen- 
sive ; no bugs, snakes, spiders, mosquitoes, flies ; none of the 
larvse, worms, fearful brutes or parasites, except their lemurs in 
museums, to be yet described. Among the most pleasant things 
up there is the universal tameness of these animals ; and a great 
deal of pleasure is derived from rare birds of the most brilliant 
plumage, which flit among the branches of the trees, making the 
groves of Vernalia vocal with their sweet and trilling warblings. 
Their numbers and variety are legion. 

(t) Look yonder ! at that rich and massive, yet light and airy 
temple, on the smooth summit of the gently sloping hill upon the 
right, standing in the midst of the beautifully ornamented plaza. 

What do you suppose it is? "A cathedral, perhaps." No; it 
is one of a vast number of Halls of Science ; it is a temple of 
Learning, and in it are taught the very fulness of much, indeed, 
nearly all, whereof on earth man has but an inkling. Here is 
known and taught nearly all that has ever been developed in 
whole or in part below, or discovered in the lesser sections of the 
circumvolving girdle. 

That upon which our attention is fixed appears to have been 
built of finest jasper and chrysolite. It is very like what one 
John of old beheld in vision and described in the Apocalypse. 
The building before us is septagonal in shape ; has a central dome 
of crystal, clear as air, flanked by six minarets or turrets. It 
embodies all the excellences, and bears none of the crudities, of 
earthly architecture ; it has all the advantages, from those of the 
simple cavern, to the most ornate composite of the current year. 
In size this temple exceeds those of Karnac and Nineveh, for it 
covers a space five square miles in extent, and is of corresponding 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 155 

height. In it are many halls, from the rostra of which lectures 
are given to thousands upon thousands of eager and delighted 
students, who, beside being personally benefited thereby, are 
fitted to go forth as teachers to the innumerable multitudes of 
lesser grades ; and also to the earth. Many and many are the 
audiences here who have sat spellbound beneath the eloquent 
outpourings of some entranced medium, through whom these 
ethereal envoys were repeating the substance of many of the lec- 
tures originally delivered for their instruction in the temples of 
the Rosy Land. 

In the temple before us are taught the rudimentary principles 
of the higher grades of knowledge ; and people, not morally, and 
otherwise fitted to dwell in that grand division, but whose intel- 
lects demand such food as is there dispensed, are, under certain 
conditions, allowed to listen to the teachings, just as a semi-re- 
pentant rebel might be allowed to attend speeches upon loyalty 
and the inalienable rights of man in one of the loyal institutions 
of his country. There are also taught letters, generally; fine 
art ; sculpture ; architecture ; enginery ; the elements of music as 
a graded science ; elemental algebra, with all the lesser mathe- 
matics ; spherical astronomy ; geology ; plane and spherical trigo- 
nometry, with reference to both astronomy and sphereonomy, — 
the science that there corresponds to geography here ; zoology, 
the elements of medical jurisprudence ; elements of social physics, 
static and dynamic ; elemental logic ; mechanics ; chemistry ; ele- 
ments of language ; natural history ; elemental botany ; elemental 
embryology, and the sciences relating to the origin, dissemination, 
and intercommingling of nations, and their primary effects. 

In this temple are laboratories for experimentation in all de- 
monstrable sciences of an external nature. There are here, also, 
two singular instruments of a magnetic character, one of which is 
a loveometer, and the other a soul-measure. By the first can be 
told the love power of the soul ; by the other the development and 
capacity of the soul itself. But these, like phrenological callipers, 
and the gyroscope, are philosophic toys, rather than really useful 
agencies. 

We have here also very fine museums, in which we may inspect 
whatever the earth has produced, both normal and monstrous ; 
there are also valuable scroll volumes, and numberless caricatures, 



156 after death; 

intended to teach by antitheses and ridicule. Here also may be 
seen representatives of animated nature, from the common zoophyte 
to the monster creations of ten millions years ago, not a vestige 
of which has ever been seen by earth-embodied man, but whose 
simulacra are reproducible by a law stated in a previous chapter 
of this work. 

Great sport is made, in pictures, of the physician who under- 
took to cure a mental disease by solely physical means ; and vice 
versa; of an educated man whose fame and gain resulted from his 
skill in lawing and lying ; the picture of a pulpit ; an ordained 
minister ; a newspaper editor ; an honest politician ; the virtue- 
compelling appliances of these dismal ages, in a series, embracing 
racks, thumb-screws, cat-o'-nine tails, tar, feathers, jails, revolvers, 
State-prisons, bowie-knifes, dirks, whiskey distilleries, a la that of 
Deacon Giles ; a few guillotines, an executioner ; a fine repre- 
sentation of hell-fire, with grilling souls and grinning parsons 
gayly looking on ; with a club-footed bugaboo — most ridiculous 
of all ! — with pitchfork and dragon tail, all in complete Miltonian 
style ; a gallows or two ; genuine copies of Christian divorce laws ; 
statues of a happy married couple of 1868 ; portraits of the public 
man or woman who .escaped scandal or slander, and who were 
righted by taking notice thereof; a wife that preferred being 
driven, to being drawn, to duty ; a husband who relished Caudle 
lectures, and whose love increased for his wife in proportion as 
she put on airs and exposed his faults to the world ; a child that 
grew up properly by being abused and beaten ; a man really grate- 
ful for a favor bestowed ; one who remained true to him, of whom 
he borrowed money ; him whom a prison reformed ; a case where 
persuasion effected less than force. Such and a thousand other 
methods of teaching by antithesis are adopted in these colleges. 

(u) Marriages in the soul world are not dependent upon what 
people say or think of a proposed match. Nor is it necessary to 
procure a license or employ justice, parson, or priest ; for as it 
concerns the parties themselves, they never say, " By your leave," 
but go straightway and marry themselves, — that is, their fitness 
for each other being apparent, their union being natural and spon- 
taneous, is forthwith recognized as right and proper by themselves 
and everybody else. " My eyes met his," said a disbodied 
woman, referring to her meeting with one she loved and who loved 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 157 

her as well, " and in this meeting there was a mingling too. "We 
felt the blending ; knew we were for each other ; tacitly acknowl- 
edged that we twain were one henceforward for a time, if not fa- 
deed forever. Poor me ! I did not then know how long ' forever ' 
is. In love affairs on earth it practically means two months, more 
or less ; and until both parties are exhausted by excess, or the 
magnetic attraction changes polarity, and bodies repel as they once 
drew together. But the term stands for a longer period in ethereal 
land, but yet fails to embrace all the category of eternity — quite. 
States mark duration here, in some respects, and not the tick-tick 
of the mantel-clock ; and marriage lasts just so long as the parties 
thereto are agreeably and mutually pleased with, and attracted, to 
each other, and no longer. It may endure for ten weeks or twenty 
ages. But just so soon as perfect happiness no longer results 
from the union, a mutual separation inevitably results, and each is 
at liberty to find another better adapted to that end." Nothing 
can break a union there but mutual discontent, and nothing can 
perpetuate it where that exists. It does not in the spiritual 
world ; it ought not in this. People never quarrel about these 
matters in the upper grand divisions. They know that anger is 
folly, its exhibition barbarous, that it never mends matters or* 
heals any ill whatever, and so they tacitly agree to disagree, and 
there the matter ends. 

" On earth," says the lady, " I, as a thousand others had, be- 
lieved in the dogma of eternal affinities, or that God had from the 
beginning created and appointed a certain man ta husband a cer- 
tain woman, from the time they met, — a matter, of the merest 
chance, — till the end of the ' everlasting ages,' — a term or ex- 
pression wholly meaningless. According to that doctrine, God 
had foreseen that Tom, the tinker's happiness, depended upon his 
eternal conjugation with Betsey, the chambermaid, and hers upon 
the same conjunction, and yet took infinite pains to so mix things 
up in the world, where Tom and Betsey needed each other most, 
that they had just about as good a chance of meeting each other as 
they would of again finding a single drop of red ink flung into the 
sea. True, people not seldom find their ' affinities ' on earth ; but 
so far from being everlasting are they, that if they endure for six 
calendar months, that particular eternity is unusually long ! 
Thousands, with myself, had believed that every one would some- 



158 AFTER DEATH ; OR, DISBODIED MAN. 

where meet with a congenial partner ; and so far the dogma is un- 
questionably correct and true ; but when it is also affirmed that in 
company with the particular congenial one the amazing cycles of 
eternity would be spent and passed, then a grave error was com- 
mitted ; a false conclusion reached ; and here are the unmistak- 
able reasons why : No one is infinite, except in capacity of acquire- 
ment. At every stage of the human career, the cry is more, more ! 
and constantly, we find new wells whereat to partially quench the 
soul's thirst. There is an attainable point of development just 
and evermore beyond. And albeit a joy experienced in section 
five may be full to the point of pain, yet that same degree experi- 
enced in section seven would be a very tame affair. A, b, abs, 
and simple addition lose their interest at twenty-five. The intel- 
lectual and every other horizon, vast as it may be, will still grow 
larger, like that of a man going up a steep mountain, who from its 
summit sees villages close to its foot and near at hand, which yet 
are fifty miles away, while the ocean yonder is three times as 
far." * 

* Taken from my work, the antecedent of this one, called " Dealings with the 
Dead," published in 1861. P. B. R. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



WHY "ETERNAL AFFINITY" IS NOT TRUE — EFFECT OF A BAD MARRIAGE ON THE VIC- 
TIM, AFTER DEATH — HOW SOULS ARE INCARNATED — WHY SOULS DIFFER — THE 
SECOND GRAND DIVISION OF THE SPIRIT LAND — SEAS, PORTS, VESSELS, SAILORS, IN 
SPIRIT LAND — HUNTING SCENES THERE — THE PRESBYTERIAN HEAVEN. 



The scope, sweep, and extent of the entire human being must 
ever enlarge : mental, like physical motion, gives heat, and heat 
expands its subject and object. As we advance in the spirit, as in 
this life, new, higher, and better and nobler ideals are conceived, 
and we are impelled by the law within to work up to, and act on, 
those ideals, whatever they may be ; and whether they interest the 
personal, social, moral, sesthetic, religious, or intellectual depart- 
ments of our nature. New possibilities will ever be attempted 
and achieved, albeit nothing whatever can permanently fill the 
vast reservoirs of the soul, for though they be filled to-day, the 
pressure will expand them and thus make room for more ere to- 
morrow shall end. True, the soul may rest satisfied for a while, 
and a long while ; but the monotony will at last be broken, and it 
will sigh and seek for change. Action is the law of true life, 
multiplied and varied action. Eternal sameness means eternal 
stagnation. 

The love of thirty years is not the love of eighteen or forty-five. 
No one goes alone from earth to Spirit Land. Some loving one is 
always by his side or hers, from the last breath till eternity grows 
bald and gray. No one goes alone from one grand division to an- 
other ; no one can gravitate from a low to a higher state before he 
or she is fully fit to do so, and then they graduate in couples. 
But it does not follow that those loving classmates or kindly ones 
are ever the same persons. It were a poor heaven if only one 
true soul sincerely loved us. If comrade A, in division three, is 
not prepared to go with B to division four, then A's place is im- 

159 



160 after death; 

mediately taken by C or D, who are prepared, and the union, thus 
based on fitness, is far closer than that just dissolved. 

" As like as two peas ! " Well, no two peas are alike, nor any 
two persons in existence; no two souls can develop alike, in all 
respects and at the same rate, because no two can be exactly simi- 
lar ; and if they were, the chances are a million to one that this 
one forges a little ahead of the other, or that one springs a mine 
without the other's sphere. The chances are infinitely against 
their remaining alike for any given period. Their earthly experi- 
ences could not have been parallel, and a single reminiscence, a 
memory, may beget a change that will establish a divergence of 
eternal duration. A tone heard, a flash of light, a motion seen or 
felt by one of the parties, may beget a movement th'at in time 
would completely change the entire mental and emotional consti- 
tution, just as continued grains of poison would modify the body 
that took them. For this reason, then, that no two souls can forever 
develop in parallel lines, one of them must, in time, diverge from, 
advance beyond, rise above, or constitutionally change, outgrow 
or offgrow the other : the ' ' eternal " affinity must be considerably 
foreshortened and lopped off here and there, until common sense 
makes all clear, plain, right, and the Infinite wisdom be vindi- 
cated. Yet souls are made in pairs ; but this involves perpetual 
friendship, but by no means eternal marriage, — it requires oppo- 
sites for that ; but our twin is very like ourself. Hence we don't 
commit incest up there ! 

Marriage m Aidenn is an entirely different affair and institution 
from what it is on earth in these most dismal days of these dismal 
ages, in purpose, nature, and result. Lust or passions, as such, are 
lopped off altogether in the higher communities, and loftier stages of 
post-mortem existence. On earth true love often goes begging for 
recognition, appreciation, and return. Generally, love is surface 
only ; is short-lived, plebeian, — amounts to trouble and nothing 
more. In the better land it is imperial, human, natural, and pure. 
On earth it has many counterfeits ; people are deceived thereby ; 
legal union follows ; and what promised to be a fair heaven, proves 
the hottest kind of — its opposite. "Whoso disputes this needs but 
look at the pale and haggard cheeks of women ; the long train of 
uterine diseases ; the half-made children ; the millions of graves 
not three feet long ; the thousands of tombstones showing how 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 161 

young Mrs. So-and-so died ; the multitude of grog and tobacco 
shops ; the long rigmaroles of quack doctors, in the public prints ; 
the brothels, high and low, open and secret ; the sickening cata- 
logues of infamy in " criminal " and "criminal " journals ; and the 
general hell of society at large, — all of which is the pestilent result 
of false marriages, and what comes of them ; and none of which 
would exist if love, not interest and passion, reigned in the fami- 
lies of Christendom. This is gall and wormwood, I know ; but it 
is as true as truth's gospel, nevertheless. " And the Spirit says 
write ! " and I write ; for these truths are written on the whole face 
of the universe, and whoso fails to read, fails in human duty. 
First, the establishment of the logical grounds of immortality and 
its demonstration ; and then to strike at the evils of society, — 
among which that of wrong marriage is one of the greatest, — was 
and is the mission of spirits to the earth, and true clairvoyance to 
the world. 

Among nominal reformers one of the vital questions for discus- 
sion and settlement is that of " virtue," meaning chastity, because 
it is a basic subject. All sorts of opinions have been ventilated ; 
and measures proposed to heal all ills in that direction ; and some 
have even proposed the homoeopathic system, and to establish the 
reign of virtue by making libertines of all the men, and prostitutes 
of all the women. This claiming too to be " philosophical " might 
do it, but hoio I am unable to perceive. 

These people call themselves individual sovereigns, under the 
leadership of one who, being a man of brains, though not quite a 
" god," ought to know better. Then there are those who dwelt in 
" Agapomene," or the " abode of love," along with the late " Broth- 
er "Prince; then there are the nasty "perfectionists" of Oneida, 
who live in "complex" marriage with four hundred "wives," 
mostly red-haired — more or less, under the tutelage of Noyes ; 
then there are the latter-day saints of Utah — an absurd lot ; next 
we have "Passional Attractionists," or "free love," which gets 
more people into exceedingly hot water than into heavenly bliss ; 
all of which shows that the land of marriage needs exploration and 
clearing up. 

Now, people go to the lower divisions of the spirit world just as 
they were here ; what wonder, then, if occasionally some unhappy 
sensitive is tempted into error by them, or the wandering spectral 
21 



162 after death; 

gentry already described herein ; or that the most absurd things 
are " communicated" on the subject of marriage, including all the 
above and other ridiculous notions, still more revolution ary. Such 
teachings come from the second grand division invariably, whose 
inhabitants are as prone to absurd fallacies as are similar grades 
on earth. It is, at the same time, most undoubtedly true that all 
Spirit Land is constantly assailing the marriage laws and customs 
of Christendom, and I think justly too, especially in all that relates 
to divorce, because they are unable to see why an unhappy couple, 
whose misery is complete, should be necessitated to commit a 
grave error, not to say crime, in order to a safe deliverance from a 
false and wretched bond. So am I. Pure streams cannot flow 
from corrupt sources. Good children cannot come of unhappy 
parents ; nor a family, on the whole, be right and normal, the 
heads of which are improperly mated. We expect devils in hell, 
social or domestic, to exhibit their traits, and produce their kind. 
Couples who mutually love can easily prolong their union till 
death, and such never, or very seldom, wander astray after 
strange faces. But it sometimes happens that' a genuine love 
between man and wife, from two unsuspected causes, grows cool 
and dead. But as a general thing all the disturbance can be 
righted quite easily, and domestic infelicity be forever ended by 
the observance of a few simple rules that may be written on a 
single sheet of paper. It is not my province to write them here.* 
To resume : Let it be clearly and thoroughly understood, that 
there can be no universal heaven until all the domestic and social 
hells are completely changed. Then, and not till 

" Then, will the reign of Mind begin on earth; " 
And all mankind pass through the second birth ; 
Domestic love shall rule, the wide world o'er, 
And discord, pain, be banished evermore I 

(v) Comparatively few people really know anything about the 
wonderful extent of what they call Nature. For instance, how 
few are aware that, in regard to bulk, a common flea holds the 
middle rank of all land, and probably all sea, animals also ; that 
there are sentient beings as much smaller than a flea, as that flea 

* I shall print, during 1868, a very important work, covering the entire ground of 
the sexes and their relations — called "Love and its Hidden History; " same size as 
this work. Meantime, information on the points alluded to above may be had by 
addressing me at Boston, Mass. P. B. R. 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 163 

is smaller than the most bulky elephant or mastodon ! And this is 
not mere talk or assertion, but is clearly demonstrated ; for we 
find animals by aid of the solar or oxy-hydrogen microscope, so 
exceedingly small that even then they are barely perceptible, 
and yet the glass shows them to us from fifty thousand to three 
hundred thousand diameters larger than they really are ! Now, each 
of these animals has organs ; what then must be the amazing 
tenuity of the blood and nerve fluids that course through its 
tiny veins? Of what bulk must be the creature's eyes? its joints? 
the particles composing its cuticle ? 

Now, if so many are uninformed of these marvels of animated 
nature, and are lost in wonder at their contemplation, how vastly 
great would be their astonishment were they made aware of the 
greater mysteries of the human being, and the yet more wonderful 
processes and machinery by which the human spirit is elaborated 
and built up, and the death-proof soul incarnated. At the request 
of very many correspondents, and in pursuance of a promise 
made in a former chapter of this book, I will now proceed to un- 
fold a chapter of esoteric physiology, hitherto unattempted by any 
writer that I am aware of, living or departed. 

The question has long been mooted whether the mother is 
the creator of the soul of her child, or the father. Some, and Dr. 
J. H. Redfield among the number, maintained that the only office 
fulfilled by the male in the procreative or sexual act, is to quicken 
into active life the germ already in the female organism. Others 
contend that the germ of the body is furnished by the woman, 
that of the soul by the man ; still other theories and hypotheses 
exist. In the semen of a healtlry man there is found by the micro- 
scope quite a large number of tadpole-looking worms, and to 
these, which some think to be germinal human beings, has been 
given the name " Spermatozoas," " Spermacules," and simply 
" Zoas," by which latter name I shall speak of them. They are 
undoubtedly living creatures, created or existing for a special 
mission. They have often been seen to fight, show signs of anger 
and satisfaction, and to force their way through the coating of the 
female ova, or egg, and it is their numbers and activity, while in 
man's pelvis, that occasions the feeling of desire or lust, — that 
being one of God's methods to provoke man to procreate his 
species, the act of which, in right union is the source of the 



164 AFTER death; 

highest nerval joy the human, frame is capable of experiencing. [I 
may here, say, in passing, that more than seven-tenths of the dis- 
eases man endures arises from the presence in his blood- of an 
acrid substance, — a compound of bile, uric acid, and phosphatic 
salts, that hills these zoas, rendering him nervous, irritable, angular, 
dj'speptic, and the prey of morbid fancies, not seldom ultimating in 
chronic impotence, magnetic depletion, and confirmed insanity.] 

As observed before, these zoas have been supposed to be the 
living germs of future human beings, and that they are merely en- 
larged, in the womb, by the absorption of juices from the mother, 
until, at the end of a certain period of time, expulsion takes place, 
and the child, which has thereto lived in and breathed water, like 
a fish, now breathes the upper air, and becomes a living soul. 

This Irypothesis is, and is not, correct and true. It is true that 
these zoas are the material points about which is deposited that 
which subsequently becomes a human body ; but it is not true that 
a mere enlargement of the zoa in utero constitutes that body ; for, 
in the first place, such an enlarged zoa would be a monster, formed 
something like a gelatinous lizard ; and, in the second place, the 
zoa, like all other seeds, dies as a seed, or zoa, before it becomes 
a human being. As a zoa it subserves another end, presently to 
be stated ; but I will here remark that those children who are be- 
gotten when, on both sides, passion's tide is at the highest flood, 
and neither party exhausted, — when impregnation results from 
the first contact after prolonged absence and abstinence, — are 
immeasurably superior to those of the same parents, launched into 
being from exhausted bodies and fagged and weary minds ; for 
such children are from ripened zoas, invariably, and a ripened zoa 
may be of the fourth or fifth order of monad, concerning which 
mystery read on. So far as the zoospermes of beasts are con- 
cerned, they have solid heads, and, in some of the lower orders, 
seem to enlarge, and finally become gestated into the perfect ani- 
mal whose species they are. To a great extent this is also the 
case with the zoospermes of the simia, embracing all the apes, 
even up to those which almost trench on human ground, — namely, 
the orang, chimpanzee, gorilla, and neschiego, — the link below the 
bushmen and tailed " men" of Western Africa. It is not so with 
reference to the strictly human zoas, or germs, for each one of 
these has a crystalline head ; but, again, these heads approach the 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 165 

solid or beast type, the lower in the mental scale is the man or 
men whose they are. For instance, those of negroes are nearly 
opaque, and but dimly clear at best ; while those of a cultivated 
white man, like Poe, President Lincoln, Persons the healer, and 
men of their mental calibre, are very clear and crystalline. This 
clearness differs in accordance with the mental stature of the man. 
I have said that every zoosperme of the strictly human being has 
a crystalline head, — which fact the microscope will ere long dem- 
onstrate, — and in that head is contained a monad, and a monad 
is a seed-soul, just as it came from God ; and each one of them has 
a history, mission, and destiny of its own, being distinctively and 
essentially unlike any other monad or soul in existence, and yet 
having affinities for all others, and a special one for its own twin, 
— for in the beginning all monads are dual, — male and female; 
and hence, in very many respects, are peculiarly fitted for each 
other, although it may happen that one of these twin creations 
may be incarnated ten thousand years before its mate. It may 
also happen that one of them will develop into a human being the 
first time it is lodged in utero, and that its mate may not succeed 
even on the fourth trial. In such a case the superior one will act 
as guardian over the other, and develop the mate through magnetic 
rapport to a degree measurably corresponding with its own. It is 
by reason of this mysterious principle that marked characters 
often love and wed far beneath themselves, — something impelling 
them thereto which they do not understand. 

Genius almost always weds with folly, and the most brilliant 
minds consort — unhappily, ever — with beautiful stupidity ; yet 
probably the world is all the better for it in the long run, because 
in the children the obtuseness of one parent is toned up and raised, 
and the angularities of the other rounded off, producing a charac- 
ter or characters brighter than one, less eccentric than the other, 
and more useful than either. Elsewhere in this book, also in a 
sheet long printed, I have given a rule for the production of off- 
spring, which, if heeded, will be productive of children of surpass- 
ing beauty, worth, intellect, and power. 

Observe these facts : the crystalline head of the zoa is both 
material and spiritual. It contains something of all parts of the 
father, for it is the foci of the human ellipse, about which every- 
thing within him rotates, and which is influenced by all that dis- 



166 after death; 

turbs or pleases him. Proof : a child begotten under the influence 
of extremes of any kind is sure to bear the marks thereof either in 
mind or body. "Witness the effects on the child of liquor or to- 
bacco, anger or avarice, passion or power, on the father's or the 
mother's part. 

Each of these crystalline heads of zoas bears mental and psj'-chical 
marks as well as merely physical of the father ; it also bears the 
stamp of ages, — impressions, strangely transmitted, of the fore- 
time, which subsequently are recognized as resemblances, more or 
less marked and pronounced, social, physical, mental, moral, pas- 
sional, to ancestors dead half a century before. It is this 
crystalline head or spirituo-material point (enveloping the monad) 
that determines the shape and grade of the body, spirit, and soul 
of the woman or the man ; for the heavenly tenant is forced to ac- 
commodate itself to the apartments furnished it ; and conditions 
precedent to, and during gestation, combinedly, decide that point. 
If they are large, open, and roomy, the soul thus situated for a 
time will correspond : if they are narrow, dark, dingy, cabined, 
cribbed, confined, so will be, perhaps for a lifetime, the royal prince 
of the house of God ; but it is sweet and excellent to know, as I 
do, that he will not be forever thus victimized, for time will burst 
his chains ! 

Within the atmosphere of earth the spiritual ethers float ; and 
on that inner air the monads are upborne. These monads cluster 
around all males of the human species, but are not drawn to, — in 
fact are magnetically repelled from, the female. At puberty man 
begins to breathe them in. They enter the lungs, pass into the 
circulation and, while there, visit every conceivable portion of the 
body, gathering some property and quality from each part. They 
next pass into the testes, where they received their first purely 
material investiture, — their tadpole-like extremities. When that 
process is completed, they leave those special organs and rise 
to, and enter the tube or vessel above, where they are exposed 
to two new influences : first, they are played upon by a combined 
magnetic, electric, and nerval battery, — the generation of the 
right and left teste, generally, although that from eitherwill suffice ; 
and from that source impressions of greater or less intensity ; they 
also receive tendencies, bias, and predilections from the physical 
man, more or less modified by the continued and contained force 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 167 

of his ancestry, which effects are again modified to a greater or 
less extent by the corresponding physical influences of the mother 
and her line of progenitors. 

Let us watch this holy and wonderful process a few stqps fur- 
ther ; the expulsion of the prepared monad from the ejaculatory 
tube of the father, into the incarnating apparatus (womb) of the 
dear mother, where it receives not merely body and a new form of 
life, but impressions more or less strong and distinct from her. 
Sometimes the impressions from both parents mingle, coalesce, 
combine, and the resultant child resembles both. Sometimes one 
set neutralizes the other, and the child resembles either, and some- 
times both are completely obliterated by a more powerful impres- 
sion, in which case the child resembles neither, but perhaps looks 
like some one else who has very strongly engaged the mother's 
attention ; the non-understanding of which law has made many 
a man wretched, and brought suspicion and untold misery upon 
many an innocent woman. 

Another singular fact just here : all children by different 
fathers resemble the man who first knew the mother, and all the 
stronger if she bore children by him. Again : a negress or white 
woman who may have offspring by fathers of the opposite races, 
can never afterwards have them of pure blood, even by pure-blooded 
parents I because the blood of the first progeny has mingled with, 
and become a part of the current of her own, and of course enters 
into all she ma}' subsequently bear. A cow who has her first calf 
by a red or black bull will never have one, even by sires of differ- 
ent hue, that will not bear the plain marks of the first coverture ! 
and the same law is operative in the human world as well. 

Speaking of human germs, there are hundreds of them in every 
drop of semen. In the successful impregnation, one, sometimes 
two, and occasionally three, or more, develop into human beings. 
The balance decay, all but the monad within the crystalline head, 
which returns to the atmosphere, — the great ante-chamber of the 
world, where souls wait for mortal birth and incarnation. But 
these last monads have gained a great deal in some respects, albeit 
they have failed in the great end sought. Some of them have 
failed three, four, — and sometimes five failures have marked their 
career. 

Elsewhere I have said that mankind was graded off into finer 



168 after death; 

or coarser ; and that grades of like nature affinitized. Well, let 
me here state that men of the first or lowest grade are they who 
originated from a germ that became incarnated on the first trial. 
The next higher grade of human kind spring from monads that 
have twice passed through the laboratories of both sexes ; and so 
on to the highest. Occasionally we find a man or woman of the 
fifth order on the globe ; the majority of the better classes, es- 
pecially in America, being of the third and fourth. 

In the physical processes of incarnation, accidents sometimes 
occur ; monsters, like the twins of Siam ; double headed and 
limbed children ; limbless and idiotic imbeciles ; dwarfs, like 
Stratton, Nutt, and the Warren girls ; or huge giants are born ; 
yet all of them have properly shaped spirits ; nor are there any 
ligamentary attachments beyond the grave. 

Monads that have repeatedly passed through the ordeal enlarge 
as they do so, and produce larger men ; a fact we all recognize, 
when we speak of " Mr. Jones' little, tucked-up," or " Mr. Wil- 
bor's great, big soul." 

Now, I have stated that there was a mission for the tadpole- 
looking termination of each zoa. It is thus formed in order that 
it may move, and it can go only in one direction, — straightforward. 
Why ? Behold ! On the instant that the semination takes place, 
and the monads enter the uterus, they start in a straight line to- 
ward an attractive point therein, — the ripened ovule, or female 
egg, — fighting and contending on the way, the strongest gener- 
ally, but not always, winning the race. The one that reaches the 
ripe ovum (sometimes there are several ripe ova in the uterus, in 
which case multiple impregnation is likely to occur) first, immedi- 
ately attacks it, forces an entrance, and forthwith dies, in its then 
form, to live again in a higher one. As soon as the zoa has en- 
tered the ovum, the aperture it made immediately closes and 
shuts it in. Then the central vesicle, or "yolk" of the ovum 
divides, admits, and envelopes the crystalline head of the zoa, 
and the gestative work goes on, — successively passing through 
all the stages that life passed through on the outer globe, namely, 
a gelatinous point, analidal, fish, reptilian, quadrumanal, simial, 
until finally it reaches the human plane of development, — for the 
unqualified truth of which statement I appeal to every true embry- 
oloaist in the world. 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 169 

Now, if no interruption takes place, a new soul is in existence. 
If otherwise, then the mere material carcass, death-charged, is 
born, and the imperial spirit abides its chances for another trial. 
If the process is arrested, but not stopped entirely, the child will 
bear the image of that class or order of animated nature at whose 
point the estoppal took place. 

It may happen that monads of a high grade are incarnated 
under favorable conditions by parents of a low one, which accounts 
for many of those exceptional cases, wherein couples of coarse 
texture produce extraordinary children, with physical, moral, and 
mental organizations immeasurably superior to that of either 
parent. 

Another fact : zoas are things of growth, just like anything 
else ; and it requires time for them to ripen and become crystal- 
crowned. We can eat green fruit, but it is not good to do so ; and 
we can also lodge these zoospermes in utero before they are duly 
prepared ; but whoso plants unripe seed cannot expect good trees 
or fruit. Unless the zoas are at least nearly ripe, the results are 
bad; if not ripe at all (from excess, disease, etc.), no living re- 
sults can follow. 

Now, suicide is a dreadful crime ; so is wilful murder ; and 
whoever commits the first, by habitual violation of the natural 
marriage and parental laws of being, — or the other, by too fre- 
quent violation of the sanctities of his own or another's nature, — 
will pay for it by an exceedingly long pilgrimage to the fifth grand 
division of Spirit Land. 



(w) The reader will please remember that on the completion of 
my rapid survey of the seventh section of the first grand divis- 
ion, I had a view of the fifth grand division, which view I invited 
him or her to share and enjoy with me ; and that I took advantage 
of the opportunity thus offered to reveal certain arcana of great 
value and importance ; having done which, I now go back to the 
point where I finished the description of the last section of the 
first division. 

Now, the second division occupies a belt or area more than 
twice as broad as that just below it, in order, and is peopled by 
many millions more than that ; indeed, the population is so im- 
22 



170 AFTER death; 

mense that it can only be numbered by grades, nations, societies, 
brotherhoods, communities, large families, and special orders. 
Here natural laws begin to be modified by human laws, or, 
rather, natural laws are studied, classed, codified, and laid down 
as guides and rules of life. 

As a matter of course, there are no " statute books." People 
begin to understand the importance and value of self-restraint, 
and to check a too exuberant spontaneousness. Enthusiasm, as 
contrasted with principle, is realized to be nearly altogether un- 
reasoning and emotional, hence not to be depended upon, being 
far less reliable than calm reflection. Tolerable order prevails. 
Eeligions multiply, and are encouraged, but are quite superficial, 
few of them being grounded on either understanding or principle. 
It being a semi-barbarous region, kings, priests, chiefs, and rulers, 
generally, affect great pomp and state. Rites, ceremonies, 
pageants, processions, celebrations, and embassies are both fre- 
quent, and conducted with great display and on a magnificent 
scale, — in that respect outvying the old Greek and Roman tri- 
umphs. Here it is seen that barbarism is softening its lines, has 
perceptibly declined, and is fast refining away toward something 
better and more worthy of man. 

In this division immense numbers of children of the lower and 
middle class or grades are trained and taught, in a variety of 
ways, by numerous tutors, who are themselves the pupils of 
devoted missionaries from loftier realms. 

There is one thing very peculiar in this division, which, from 
its singularity, merits special mention. I refer to the region of 
phantasies, — a sort of lunatic asylum on an enormous scale. 
One entire half section of this division is put to very strange uses ; 
but it is also a vast sanitorium, as will be seen. 

Here are seen vast seas, some of which bear the names of ours ; 
and on them, myriads of ships, boats, and other craft generally, 
are navigated by persons who were used to such occupations 
before death. On the shores of those seas maritime ports and 
cities exist, to which these seamen sail and trade ; and all 
this in strict accordance with the wonderful law of Projection, 
but in a dual sense. First, it is an out-creation of the general 
and particular master-mind of the water-loving classes ; and is at 
the same time, a special providence of the Over Soul, hence is also 



OR, DISBODIED M4X. 171 

the creation of general law. What would otherwise give joy to, 
or gratify the mariner or his class ? Evidently, at first, none at 
all. 

Speaking of the Indian's heaven the poet says, — 

"His faithful dog shall bear him company; " 

and it is true of other classes as well as of the red man of the 
wilds. And so far as sailors are concerned, nautical they were 
bred and many of them born ; nautical they lived, nautical they 
died, and after that to a nautical scene they go. The principia 
of all this will shortly be seen. 

Such persons would be simply wretched and miserable in a 
scene purely terrene. On earth they were used to splashing 
waves, roaring seas, and gayly festive scenes ashore ; and pro- 
vision has been made for them quite as much as for the self-styled 
magnates of society and the world, no matter how "great" or 
" popular" they may be or have been. Such persons — mariners 

— want such scenes and surroundings, and lo ! they have them 
there, just as here ; and phantom-like shallops, laden with phan- 
tasmal fruits, and no on, go alongside of phantasmal ships, dis- 
posing of phantasmal goods to genuine sailors, for phantom 
money. Brokers, bankers, exchangers, grocers, money-getting 
Jews, — such as killed Christ and sell old clo' in Chatham street, 

— abound thereaway ; and a life of stir and commerce gratifies 
the tastes of persons in that peculiar phase of love and life. In 
another part of that same section, Indian hunting-grounds are 
found, stretching away for many a furzy, grassy league ; and 
many a spectral stag or buffalo is chased, with whoop and yell, to 
phantasmal death and capture ; whereat loud sounds the triumph- 
song, merry goes the free, wild dance, and all are filled with 
tarantulean joy and gladness ! Here, also, are large domains, 
wherein fox-hunting lords and squires renew their old pastime. 
Loud rings the " tallyho ! " and "harkaway;" while spectral 
jowlers, growlers, ring-doves, and fowlers, spurred to wild 
frenzy by the weird hunters' hip, hurrah! hilloo, hilloi! — leap 
phantom ditches, bound o'er phantom walls, and rush, full cry 
and pell-melJ. through phantom forests, fens, and brakes, followed 
helter-skelter, at neck-or-nothing paces by as jocund a set of 
genuine sportsmen as ever followed stag or emptied punchen 



172 AFTER death; 

beaker. Many a reynard is thus worried out of his brief and 
phantom life. What a host of originals these weird pleasure- 
seekers have left behind them here on earth ! 

Horse-racing — making better time than did ever Childers, Sir 
Henry, Fashion, Kentucky, or Eclipse — is of frequent occurrence 
in that section, sandwiched with deer-stalking, regattas, cock- 
fighting and rabbit-coursing. Clubs for pleasure abound, suited 
to all tastes and all sorts of people, who delight in hurdle-leaping, 
ball-play, quoits, rackets, draughts, chess, bagatelle, and billiards. 
Turner festes are favorite amusements among Teutonic peoples ; 
while many a Spanish don and grandee's heart leaps again as of 
yore/ in their earthly days, at the exb.ilarant spectacle of a fero- 
cious bull, receiving the coupe de grace at the spear's point of some 
victorious matadore. In short, nearly whatever you see here, 
you will see there, also, in accordance with a law already partly 
defined in this book, and thoroughly so in its antecedent — 
"Dealings with the Dead." 

But, after awhile, this life of phantasy ceases to be pleasurable, 
precisely as a lunatic grows weary of his lunacy, as reason begins 
to reassume her sway. A higher law comes in operation, grad- 
ually elevating the subject, and effecting changes in the indi- 
vidual, and making all these things tasteless, vapid, insipid ; and 
as distaste increases, first one and then another person gravitates 
from them and thenceforth seeks for normal joys', labor, and ad- 
vancement. They ascend to higher and better grades, sections, 
and societies. The law of Vastation asserts its power ; they 
throw off the old, begin de novo, and their healthful, upward, nor- 
mal life commences. 

In still another part of this section of phantasies, large numbers 
of Christian sectarists abound, all still most devoutly believing 
in election, salvation, predestination, the efficacy of prayer — in 
words — not deeds ; — justification by faith, — whatever that may 
happen to be, — and in the utter, final, and complete damnation 
of all outsiders. They still, as of yore, believe that there is a 
real, sulphur-burning hell, presided over by a devil with hoofs, 
horns, tail, trident, pitchfork, and whose common beverage is 
melted lead ; that the floor of that hell is thickly strewn with 
human infants just a span long, or thereabouts, and that all the 
future ages are to be spent by themselves and God in listening to 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 173 

the delicious music of the eternal groans of all these myriads of 
grilling souls ! They keep on believing such folly, until time, 
reflection, and testimony modify their opinions, whereupon one 
fallacy after another is dropped ; they become convinced of having 
hugged sable Error as Divine Truth ; and then they, under the 
operation of the law of advancement, seek admission into societies 
where better things prevail. 

Speaking of Phantasies, leads me to remark that, scout at it 
who may, eleven-twelfths of us here on earth dwell in that 
identical region. More than one great thinker in this world 
has contended stoutly that this earthly existence of ours was, 
and is, but a dream life, and that death is our waking hour. 
However that may be, it is certain that most of us lead anything 
but truly normal, wakeful lives. " What shadows we are, and what 
shadows we pursue," is daily thrown up to us by the waves of 
experience. How many millions of us fancy this or that to be 
our supreme good, when afterward it is proved to have been a 
merely phantasmal benefit? What is party, sect, creed, fashion, 
inordinate wealth, personal vanity, pride, ambition, human glory, 
but an existence in the realms of the phantasmal ? It will not 
always be so, but certainly is to-day, and nine-tenths of our 
mistakes in life are the result of looking through phantasmal 
glasses at what only appears to be human good. By-and-by we 
shall see face to face, and things as they are, and not through a 
glass, darkly, as now. So may it speedily prove to be ! 



CHAPTER XIV. 

SECTARIAN HEAVENS, AND THE STEANGE DISCUSSIONS THEEE — THE MAHOMETAN 
HEAVEN — THE THIRD GRAND DIVISION OP SPIRIT LAND — SANITORIA — HOSPITALS 
FOR THE SICK, AND WHO THEY ARE — THE WONDERFUL HERB, NOMMOC-ESNES — ITS 

USES — THE FOURTH GRAND DIVISION OF SPIRIT LAND — THE "SPHERES " THE 

HEAVEN OF HALF-MEN — FIFTH DIVISION. 

In other sections of this second grand division may be found 
large societies of Methodists, Baptists, Shakers, Episcopalians, 
Catholics, and other sects, though they are only of the rank and 
file armies, for the leaders generally must be looked for among the 
people who, knowing truth, yet followed error, either because they 
saw profit and place therein, or were too indolent to investigate. 

One excellent custom has been introduced and prevails here. 
Long, spirited, and interesting discussions and regular debates 
occur, in which many profound and valuable questions are brought 
forward for examination pro and con. Such as, Who was Jesus 
Christ? Was he God incarnate; a special creation? or simply 
the truthful-hearted son of Joseph, the carpenter? The doctrine 
of transubstantiation or the real presence of the Holy Ghost in 
the Eucharist ; and is there any Holy Ghost at all ? To what ex- 
tent is the religious emotion dependent upon bodily states and 
physiological conditions ? Will there be a general judgment-day, 
and if so, what are the chances of a safe deliverance ? To what 
extent is man personally responsible, either to man or God, for 
his acts ? Is a man responsible for his thoughts ? Could a man 
commit a crime so terrible as to justify eternal damnation, or even 
a hell-bath, one hundred years long ? Is there really a hell ? If 
so, where ? Has it a club-footed monarch, or any monarch at all ? 
and if so, where did he originate, and what was the origin of the 
first sin? Is there really a principle of absolute, unqualified evil? 
If so, and good be universal, and God the supreme King, how can 
two eternal principles, forever antagonistic, — how can God and a 
Devil exist within the limits of one universe? If evil exists., 

174 



AFTER DEATH ; OR, DISBODIED MAN. 175 

inter alia, what can be God's reasons for permitting it ? Is it ab- 
solutely necessary that all human development be achieved through 
suffering? that man must wade to heaven through the swamps 
of perdition, social and otherwise? Such and similar are the ex- 
pansive topics discussed in these assemblies. They also study 
the first lessons of the primary catechism of creation ; causality and 
comparison receive a fillip, and the general advancement is slow, 
but sure and healthy. 

A singular noteworthy fact here presents itself. In all this 
division, not a single edifice can be found dedicated to any form 
of religion whatever. The teachers are all intent upon incono- 
clasm ; they seek to obliterate dividing lines, and to demolish all 
separating fences ; the object being to unite and not diverge the 
people. There is a wonderful law tacitly obej^ed which prohibits 
the establishment of any source of discord ; and when such do 
arise, the teachers, who thoroughly read and understand their 
pupils, immediately explain the matter so that all see it aright, 
and the trouble forthwith ceases. 

All worship takes place in the open air, for the people have not 
yet learned the better way of silent homage, and perpetually 
present religion, — the religion of smiles, and love, and joy, con- 
stantly upwelling from grateful, happy hearts. The congregations 
are ever shifting and changing, as graduates advance higher, and 
new-comers arrive from grades below. 

In the seventh section of this grand division are to be seen vast 
societies of lay brethren of the Brahminical and Buddhistic faiths, 
such as blindly worshipped either God ; and there are similar col- 
lections of the worshippers of the Llama as well as of the Lamb. 
As a rule, the Mahometans are decidedly the most interesting, 
because they are the most active-minded, and are of a religious 
genius that enables them to conform to custom and law, as well as 
to appreciate the sensuous advantages of their heaven. None of 
these worship in pagodas, mosques, or temples, although these 
architectural ornaments grace the scene, and lend a charm to all 
around ; but kneel, bow, or prostrate themselves in postures of 
adoration. 

Class for class, and grade for grade, the Mussulmans are happier 
than the Christians, and more rapidly advance ; their tempera- 
ments are more generous, because their minds have never been 



176 AFTER death; 

packed and crowded with ten thousand follies ; hence they have 
far less to unlearn and get rid of, preparatory to ascending to 
higher grades. Their minds are more yielding and speculative ; 
their loves fuller and more intense ; their faith in God deeper, 
truer, more soulful, and sincere ; for in many cases the former keep 
themselves midway between two powers, placating God and hav- 
ing a weather eye open for the advantages of the "other party," — 
worshipping heaven through fear of hell, — as most of them do here. 

The sons of Islam and Esau, on the contrary, believe in all the 
good they can obtain, and search after it unwearily. Voluptuous 
to the last degree, they bask in the sunshine of God's favor ; 
trouble themselves precious little about anything but their own 
affairs, and, believing in fate, — that what is to be, will be, and no 
help for it, — they find but little time or inclination to dispute, 
quarrel, go about on philandering excursions after what don't 
directly concern them, or to insure themselves against hell-fire. 

(x) The third grand division exceeds in grandeur and magnifi- 
cence anything earthly except the hasheesh vision of a refined 
Turk, or the blissful dreams of a poet in love with an unreachable 
beauty. It may be called the grand Sanitorium of the zonal 
worlds ; for it is the place where, like Bunyan's Pilgrim, we drop 
many and many a load, borne in some instances for a thousand 
years or more of earthly time. For our progress is entirely spon- 
taneous and voluntary, and is forced upon us in no possible de- 
gree. In this division many and splendid hospitals abound ; not 
large houses with long rows of beds, tons of nauseating doctor's 
stuff, paid nurses wishing you would hurry up and die, so as to be 
able to get the purse under 'your pillow, or the jewels from your 
ears and fingers ; there's nothing of the sort there ; no crutches, 
slops, water gruel, bad wine, and worse panada. But these 
Sanitoria are vast estates, leagues in extent, diversified with all 
that is charming and grateful to the senses ; pleasure-grounds, 
brooks, groves, mountains, vales, hills, dells, prairies, meadows, 
gurgling rills, silvery rivers, neat cottages, gorgeous palaces, 
retired groves and pearly grottos, gymnasia, and museums, model 
hills, and contrasted pictured heavens ; panoramic displays of 
earth's history, and man's progress from creation till the passing 
hour. Here, all those of a tolerably fine temperament, but who 
were crookedly grown in mind ; who were mentally and morally 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 177 

, unhealthy ; violently or partially insane or demented, are ration- 
ally and scientifically treated to perfect recovery ; for no one can 
reach the next division who is not sound (although perhaps still 
weak) in the mental, moral, and religious departments of their 
nature. Some of these graded estates are larger in area than 
either of earth's continents, and every conceivable means of cure 
are faithfully resorted to. The stay of a patient depends upon 
himself. If he learns fast, he passes on ; if not, he remains till 
he is prepared. 

The medicine most in vogue there is that of Nommoc-Esnes, 
sometimes used on earth. When well applied and digested, it 
there, as here, effects the most marvellous cures. I may state, 
however, that people on earth spell -the name of this great 
remedy backwards, for here the letters are reversed. Every one 
can find and use it, and it is already being applied to the cure of 
many ills, among which are those of marriage and religion. 

The diseases treated there are mainly various forms of mental 
and moral insanity ; and many are admitted whose minds are so 
warped that they actually believed in the absurdity of promiscuous 
and temporary passional marriages, of the merely physical grade 
or order, — the "Sociologists," "Free-lovers," "Mormons," 
" Agapemones," and others of that ilk, as well as the " Shakers, " 
and other opposite extremists. Many are there doctored to health 
who once firmty and honestly believed in hell-fire, eternal damna- 
tion, capital punishment, distilleries, rum-selling, absynthe, and 
other dram-drinking, wars, duelling, slavery, woman-buying, and 
man-selling, in more senses than one ; the divine right of kings ; 
that complexion or money makes the man ; that span-long babies 
are in torment ; that the heart is depraved, above all things, and 
desperately wicked ; that God's heart can be touched through his 
ears, while the conduct and thought are far from him ; that he 
created and gives free scope to a personal devil ; that might is 
right ; that Adam was the first man, or that any such family as his 
and Cain's, Abel's and Seth's, ever existed, save in Israelitish and 
other Oriental legend ; that the Eden story is anything more than 
a pretty fable, conceived by men anxious to account for what they 
saw, and could not understand ; that all men descended from a 
single pair; that God ever selected the Jews, — such as killed 
Jesus, and live in Chatham street, — as his peculiar people ; that 
23 



178 after death; 

they ever were a nation, or anything else than a class, with old 
clo' and banking penchants ; that Moses or any other man, mysti- 
cal or real, ever talked face to face with the Creator ; that Moses 
ever saw God's posteriors, or that God has such at all ; that 
Baalam's ass ever talked Hebrew, good, bad, or indifferent ; that 
•Samson slew a thousand Philistines, with the jawbone of an ass 
— except in print; that Adam and Eve were snaked out of Para- 
dise, and that said snake was a good linguist, skilled in the art of 
seduction ; that a man threw down a stone temple by main 
strength ; that he carried off the gates of Gaza ; or that his power 
lay in his hair, and not in his muscles ; that the whale swallowed 
Jonah, or vice versa; that Noah's fabled ark contained a pair of 
all animals ; that Noah, Jesus, Buddha, or any other man, was 
ever born of a virgin, or were special incarnations of Deity ; that 
the prevalent idolatries, Christian and otherwise, of these dismal 
ages, will not be superseded by the religion of Reason, Science, 
and Common Sense, — the only great and truly reformative faith yet 
extant ; that lip and formal worship is equal to that of silence and 
the heart ; that divorce consists in a judicial decision ; that re- 
ligion really consists in anything else than practical goodness, 
based upon interior conviction, outcropping in noble actions and 
broad sympathies ; that marriage consists in a ceremony. In 
short, millions of people are treated for such and similar insani- 
ties ; and their cure is thorough, radical, and complete. 

(y) The fourth grand division is the general receptacle of the 
graduates of all below it, coming through the third. From cer- 
tain sections of this circle, constituting the great Missionia, go 
forth the thousands of ethereal people who are now engaged in 
rapping common sense into the public head, and reasonable 
thoughts and rational faith into the people of earth generally, 
through tables, chairs, and other furniture, from which articles the 
American people have advanced to "bureaus," — the Freedmen's 
and Educational, — the former being an imposition, the latter a 
blessing to the world. 

This division is the one so frequently alluded to by rapping 
spirits and speaking media, as the " spheres," its sections being 
numbered from one to seven, inclusive ; although, in fact, it is far 
below the spheres truly thus numbered, — for if we speak of abso- 
lute spheres, thus they are : first, the entire shell of zones sur- 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 179 

mounting earth, for the first sphere ; the seventh being in that 
zone that embraces our starry galaxy, and which is situated octil- 
lions of billions of trillions of miles away in straight lines from 
the earth, for it encircles nearly every star that we can see. 

The principal studies in this division comprise chemico-dynam- 
ics, algebra, geometry, electro-dynamics, magnetism, phrenology, 
biology, reasoning, and kindred branches of anthropological 
science, social statics, history, and that branch which teaches 
how to upset a man's prejudices by overturning his mahogany. 
Spiritual communion in its multiform phases is an exact science, 
and a lofty one, nor is it easily mastered by those on or off the 
earth. 

Thousands of actors, mimics, preachers, authors, artists, mu- 
sicians, doctors, lawyers, sculptors, engineers, judges, poets, sena- 
tors, orators, singers, thinkers, dramatists, kings, generals, queens, 
emperors, scientists, mechanics, cultivated Indians, are there, and 
more of that general class of half men and women, rapidly wearing 
off their angles and rounding out to fulness. 

From these sections undoubtedly come the most of the " kings " 
and "Richards," and manifesting spirits generally; while from 
other and higher parts come such as develop the higher grades of 
clairvoyance and seership ; for, under the direction of societies of 
the next division, they have general charge and supervision of the 
grand spiritual irruption to the earth. Of course there are mil- 
lions who come independently ; but it is they who teach mankind to 
do good, combat the errors of the age, dethrone Superstition, and 
hasten the good time coming. 

Here will be found large numbers of people of all nations i 
Chinese, Hindoos, Arabs, Greeks, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, Swiss, 
Swedes, Finns, French, German, British, Negroes, Mulattoes, a 
few Jews, Indians, Spaniards, Italians, Japanese, Russians, Turks, 
and Americans, representing all nations in themselves, for they 
owe their greatness to the fact that they are miscegens, or com- 
posite men, formed by international blendings, in and out of wed- 
lock, and representative delegations from all these constantly 
teach in lower spheres, and flit back and forth from the earth 
upon various philanthropic and scientific missions. These people 
are mainly those who have outgrown many, if not all, of their 
theological, religious, and social errors, and who have gone far to- 



180 AFTER DEATH ; 

ward correcting their mistakes. Their sole business is not to 
teach partisan creeds, but to uproot thern from their well-posted 
strongholds in the public mind, and to lay instead thereof the 
solid foundations whereon truth may be hereafter built ; first, by 
demonstrations of the prime cardinal fact of immortality, irre- 
spective of all moral, mental, and religious qualifications ; and 
afterward by stirring up the thinking powers of mankind at large. 
This division excels the one below it, as much as that does the 
one beneath itself. The area is vast indeed ; the language is an 
improvement on the phonic speech of the third division ; the fields 
of air are fairer and more vivifying ; their lives are sweet ; their 
aspirations actively upward ; and in all respects they are a great 
advance upon all or any human society on the earth. The music 
there is very sweet and ravishing indeed. 

(z) The fifth grand division has already been described ; and I 
have only further to say of it, the necessity of restraining and re- 
pressive laws not existing, there are none such. The inhabitants 
are not givers and takers in marriage in the same sense as of 
earth and the spheres below, for they are angels in heaven, and 
marriage is not only spiritual, but is mystical also, for in these 
unions and blendings something of each is imparted to the other 
of a permanent and enduring character. Let me explain. A per- 
son who has reached this grade, generally has fully developed all 
the faculties possessed on earth ; but on reaching this division all 
those faculties may be regarded as being consolidated into one, 
and when the love fires of this division begin to burn, other, and 
therefore latent or nascent, powers spring into life, modifying the 
entire nature, and opening new windows in the spirit through 
which the soul can look out upon new sections of the mental and 
moral universe. 

Talk of human felicity ! What is it at best compared to the 
superlative joys of this glory-crowned paradise ? It is a tuft of 
grass to a boundless prairie ; tow cloth to satin garments ; iron 
money to golden coin ! The males there are perfectly regal and 
magnificent, — but the women ! Ah, the women ! My God ! — but 
it is of no use writing or talking about them, for the subject is too 
fine for speech or pen, and I feel half-disposed to throw my ink 
out of the window in sheer despair at my inability to do them jus- 
tice, not alone as regards their supra-mortal loveliness and heart- 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 181 

subduing beauty, but their odor of purity, excellence, and knowl- 
edge. I well remember the effect upon my soul of the appearance 
of one of the radiant women of the upper land. On the night of 
July 4th, 1864, I was writing the biography of the Brothers Da- 
venport, and correcting the stereotype proofs in an attic, — I gener- 
ally live as near heaven as I can get, for want of means to live 
nearer earth, — at No. 68 Sixth Avenue, New York, when sud- 
denly raising my head from my work, I absolutely, unmistakably, 
unequivocally beheld, just without the sash the head, eyes, face, 
and part of the bust of a woman from one of the higher sections 
of an upper grand division, and that woman was my mother, — 
dear, darling, ever true and faithful mother ! — thirty -three years 
in heaven, and I, as many, in a capital substitute for the other — 
fabled — place, especially now, since two years have been spent in 
New Orleans and Louisiana, — as near perdition as embodied man 
can get ! Her eyes, beaming with immortal love, gazed long and 
earnestly into mine. She spoke not, only telegraphed this mes- 
sage, " There's a good time coming, dear ! wait a little longer ! " 
and was gone. Reader, whosoever you are, love your mother, for 
her love is deathless and will only change when you are perfectly 
happy, not before ; and she, like mine, will bridge the eternal 
gulf, to cheer you in your labor, and be the friend at your side 
when all but her and God are deaf. Reader, love your mother ! 

In this fifth division there are many colleges and universities, 
in which spirit, its laws, static and dynamic, are taught. Mem- 
ory, the laws of thought ; the statics of life ; the principles of 
social evolution ; light, its sources and nature ; esoteric laws 
of life ; embrj-ology ; the integral and differential calculus, direct 
and in their application to various branches of human learning;" 
entosophy, astronomy, paralactic calculations ; the higher mathe- 
matics, algebra, and the true theory of the higher equations, psy- 
chological law, and a hundred sciences not yet evolved by, or sent 
down to, man on earth ; the laws and dynamics of beauty, har- 
mony, melody, form, government, religion, God, the laws govern- 
ing friendship, affection, love, the source of the generation and 
growth of thought, and a thousand things beside. 

The people are extreme^ refined, and seem to have decreased 
in size from what they were in the grade below. They partake of 
fruits and various aromas, bathe for pleasure's sake and certain 



182 AFTER DEATH ; OR, DISBODIED MAN. 

ends to be obtained, and already explained. They are mainly 
sustained by what they absorb and inhale. They sleep, as do all 
others, and are refreshed thereby. There are no crowded cities ; 
nor is the scene entirely rural ; but their houses, cots, and pal 
aces are scattered at convenient distances apart over a vast area 
of surface. They frequently visit the divisions above and below 
them, and occasionally they visit other realms of human abode, 
just as we here are intromitted to higher ranges of being occa- 
sionally. 

Note. — While correcting the proof of these chapters a very 
remarkable occurrence took place at my residence. I was cleaning 
a spirit-glass, or magic mirror, that I had just ordered for a 
correspondent, when a lady called, and began to look into the 
glass. She almost instantly saw, clear and distinctly, not only 
distant scenes, places, things, and persons on the earth, but 
developed another extraordinary power. To illustrate : Said I, 

" Who do you see, Ellenor ? " " I see Kate and O !" "Where 

are they?" "In T ." " Can you make them conscious that 

you see them ? " " Yes." And placing her will upon one of 
them, she soon said : " She sees and hears me." " Tell her that 
I am very ill, but do not mention of what." " I will do so ; but 
she is ill herself, — she has been ill herself, — been struck by a 
falling sign, and hurt her left cheek and side ; she will die, — she 
will pass to section seven, division four. I now see that glorious 
region, — James, Henry, my mother, dear mother ! are there. I 
now believe in immortality. I shall become a seeress. I thank 
God that I came here this day ! " And, overcome with emotion, she 
burst into a flood of happy tears. One more human being rescued 
from utter disbelief through the "accidental" agency of what 
half this world laughs at, but which in these days, as in those of 
the persecuted Dr. Dee, is unquestionably worth the most serious 
and profound attention. To test the truth of the lady's clair- 
voyance, a friend telegraphed and found the account all true, 
and that at that very hour Kate had beheld Ellenor as plainly 
as if in bodily form. What they did others can do as well. 



CHAPTER XV. 

. ORIGIN OF THE SPIRIT WORLD — THE FIRST TWO SPIRITS — THE TERRIFIC IMPENDING 
DANGER OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THIS EARTH — A FEARFUL AND ACTUALLY EXISTING 
POSSIBILITY — AN APPROACHING CHANGE IN THE EARTH'S AXIS — A NEW PLANET 
NEAR THE SUN — A NEW RING ABOUT BEING THROWN OFF FROM IT, AND THE FORMA- 
TION OF OTHER PLANETS BY COMETIC CONDENSATION — UPRISING OF A NEW CONTI- 
TINENT — DESTRUCTION OF THE ASTEROIDS — GOLD HILLS — HOW THE FIRST SPIRITS 

DISCOVERED THE SPIRITUAL LAND AND WENT TO IT THE REV. CHARLES HALL'S 

ARRIVAL IN SPIRIT LAND — HIS SURPRISE THE EARTH A LIVING ORGANISM. 

Questions. — "There is one point of vital import hitherto and 
purposely left undiscussed in this work ; and I do not know, or be- 
lieve it has ever been treated of before since the world began. I 
refer, not to the origin of spirit, but of the Spirit World. If there 
is such a place, then it must have had a beginning? is a very 
natural question, and one that immediately suggests another, 
which is, What prevents the earth from slipping out sideways 
from within the encircling zones ? Now, such a thing might hap- 
pen ; for instance, the earth might explode by dint of the tremen- 
dous pressure of its internal gases and fires, if, by any means, the 
volcanic rents or escape pipes should be stopped up, as they easily 
might be by the caving in of land ; or, should the floors of the 
ocean give way, and let the waters into the awful chasm of white 
and fervent heat below, the globe could not fail of being instantly 
shattered into a myriad of pieces ! Suppose the not impossible 
case, and what would be the consequence? What would become 
of the spiritual world or zones above it ? " 

Reply. — 1 st. Wishing to bring facts, illustrative of foregoing 
principles, prominently before the minds of those who read this 
work, — to leave no stone unturned that can add to or strengthen 
human belief in immortalit} 7 , — the proof of which is vainly sought 
elsewhere than in the new philosophy, variously called spiritual 
and harmonial, — it is necessary to retrace our steps down the 
vast avenue of ages, and plant ourselves upon some commanding 

183 



184 AFTEK death; 

mental height, whence we can clearly view the panorama of crea- 
tion, as it unrolled from the chaos of the pre-human world. 

There was a time when there was no spiritual zone, or belt of 
sublimated matter, surrounding earth's atmosphere ; and then 
there came a time when it began gradually to form. There was a 
time, also, when there were but two persons who had died and left 
their bodies behind them ; and as others slowly quit the form, their 
sparse numbers were added to, forming scarce anything like 
society, for they were exceedingly weak, and very lowly organ- 
ized. 

These younglings of the race, these first fruits of immortality, 
these ethereal protoplasts, these pilots on the mighty deep, fear- 
lessly put to sea, without chart or compass, for they were the first 
who had sailed over these mysterious waters, — the first who had 
essayed the untrodden paths. Of necessity, all these people dwelt 
on the earth and in its atmosphere, for as yet there was no higher 
realm, although it was then being fabricated, — they needed it not, 
they were so low in the organic scale, — just barely imperishable, 
and no more, like unto many and many a one this very day. 
No other sphere was required. Demand and supply are inter- 
related and dependent laws. 

In the course of ages disbodied people increased to millions ; 
some had greatly advanced toward a higher, though still exceed- 
ingly low state. A wider field was needed. Meantime the earth 
had given off such an amount of subtle matter, that it formed an 
equatorial belt, at about fifty miles above its surface, and, while it 
constantly received new additions from the earth, it also evolved 
its own mqve sublimated material, which ascended to a distance 
of two hundred and fifty miles perpendicular height from earth's 
surface ; and that belt also evolved another, whose mean distance 
from the common centre was eleven hundred miles, and so on till 
the entire series were formed. Not for a hundred thousand years 
from the death of the first immortal did a spirit enter upon the 
first zone, and not till that zone was well filled with people, did 
one of them ascend to the higher ; and myriads of those who have 
been out of the body for a dozen millennia, have been passed and 
surpassed by spirits but just, as it were, from earth ; while others 
again of earth's first-born, are to-day towering immeasurably 
above the reach of men of this last ten thousand years. These 



OR, DTSBODIED MAN. 185 

zones gradually receded from each other and the earth for a long 
period, but, when the great catastrophe befell the planet that burst 
asunder between Mars and Jupiter, the earth changed its axis, and 
its inclination to the ecliptic and galactic poles. Millions of peo- 
ple were killed on this earth, for the centre of gravity was instantly 
changed. " I consider," quoting from my own book " Pre- Adam- 
ite Man," pages 134, et seq., chapter on cataclysms, " the testi- 
mony concerning the flood as being unimpeachable. There must 
have been at least two great cataclysms in Asia and Africa, 
besides others of equal extent in America. . . . The melting 
of the ice at the poles, the bursting of volcanoes, and other fright- 
ful convulsions, ... caused the molten bowels of the earth 
to move ; and in their movements, islands, mountains, continents 
were upheaved in some portions of the globe, and other islands, 
mountains, and continents sunk to rise no more. Vast floods of 
water rushed down from the north pole, and up from the south, 
and myriads of the people attained immortality in the twinkling 
of God's eye, and their souls rose in millions to heaven, and 
entered the portals of disbodied glory, while their fleshly forms 
sunk, food for fishes and for worms, leaving only here and there a 
fragmentary bone or skeleton, to become, in future ages, mute but 
eloquent witnesses to the fact that there did exist, once upon a 
time, pre-Adamite races of men. The particular event here al- 
luded to is not the oriental flood of Noah, Deucalion, and others. 
But there was one before that, and infinitely more fearful. I allude 
to the ' mysterious event,' so dimly indicated in the early Chinese 
annals, and, perhaps, may be the same terrible catastrophe alluded 
to by the priests of Sais, in their conversations with Solon, some- 
thing like six centuries before the Christian era. 

" Upon geological, astronomical, and other grounds, I have 
reached the conclusion that, at a period not less than forty-two 
thousand, nor more than fifty-eight thousand six hundred years 
ago, there occurred the most tremendous event this earth ever wit- 
nessed, or ever will witness until a final convulsion shall hurl it 
out of being, as a habitable globe." Since I wrote the above I 
have become convinced that we are liable to such a catastrophe at 
any moment. Indeed this sense of a terrible impending danger is 
general ; witness the adventists and Dr. Cummings, the " Great 
Tribulation " man. And, while not an alarmist, I feel it to be my 
24 



186 AFTER DEATH; 

sacred duty to indicate the direction whence this danger is to come. 
I have already hinted at an approaching change in the earth's axis, 
and inclination to the ecliptic. It may burst upon us like a whirl- 
wind, and it may be that children now born will live to see it 
verified ! There will occur a throwing off of an immense ring 
from the sun, accompanied with the conglobation of several 
comets within the solar field ; simultaneously with which the 
family of asteroids will be precipitated upon the solar disc, and 
the planets that cross their path. This will cause the northern 
pole of earth to sink, and the southern one to rise, — forever alter- 
ing the inclination of its axis ; entirely changing the seasons ; 
causing terrific storms, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. The 
bed of the Adriatic Sea will fall, and all that portion of the globe 
will sink and again be thrown up, as has already been the case 
with Sahara and the Asiatic deserts. TA new continent will appear 
in the South Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans ; thousands of 
islands will dot the seas ; mountains and mountain-ranges will be 
levelled ; earth's bowels will be completely out-turned ; gold, silver, 
precious stones, and metals will be thrown to the surface in quan- 
tities that will forever bar them as standards of value, — for entire 
hills of them will be discovered, and the consequent effect upon 
human society may well be imagined. Thus will be ushered in 
the millennial period of earth. Let it be remembered that I pre- 
dict these things on this 24th day of May, 1866, and that I say 
they may, in all probability come to pass within the next century ; 
or, if not then, certainty within two hundred years ; but I believe 
they will come to pass in less than eighty years from this day ! 
To return to the quotation from " Pre- Adamite Man," referring 
to the last great cataclysm : " It is known that the solar planets 
are interdependent ; mutually connected . . . Fifty-eight thou- 
sand six hundred years ago, the planet then revolving in an orbit 
between Mars and Jupiter, burst asunder (in consequence of the 
falling of an ocean floor upon the central fires in the world's 
belly) , scattered into a million fragments ; the larger ones now 
constituting the Asteroids, Juno, Pallas, Vesta, Ceres and a hun- 
dred more, and the smaller bits of which are revolving at greater 
or less distances apart, in a track or belt so situated as to be 
crossed by the earth from the 13th to the 24th of every November, 
at which time, it is well known, we are visited by showers of mete- 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 187 

oric stones, attracted then by the globe. And these stones in- 
variably enter the atmosphere at its highest, which, of course, is 
the northern polar point. As the result . . . this earth sud- 
denly changed its axis and its angle toward the ecliptic ; the sun 
(and internal fires) melted the ice at the poles ; the molten mass 
in the earth's bowels became disturbed, and it vomited forth (as it 
will do again) fire and flame from a hundred volcanic mouths ; and 
Strombolic craters rained down fire enough to bury a thousand 
Sodoms and Gomorrahs. The reminiscences and legends of those 
scoriae rivers, — those fiery tornadoes, — those floods of sulphur- 
ous flame, in my opinion, furnish the basis of the Sodom and 
Gomorrah stories ! Who can doubt it, in the light of science, 
and common sense ? 

" Earthquakes rent the globe asunder — almost ; scores of 
Asiatic, European, African and cis-Atlantic cities, countries, peo- 
ples, nations, were hurled into watery and fiery graves ; the Atlan- 
tis island sunk to rise no more ; the great lake of Central Africa 
(Mosioatunye) was drained ; the British isles were riven from 
Central Europe ; the vast regions tying between the fifteenth and 
thirty-sixth parallels of south latitude, and now known as Sahara, 
were upheaved from the bottom of the salt sea, to which, when 
tillable and peopled, they had once sunk, perhaps, — else whence 
the pyramids? The Hesperidean lake of Diodorous Siculus, 
(Sicily and Naples itself, being probably one of the oldest coun- 
tries and cities of the globe) , situate in Afric's heart, ceased to be ; 
the regions of the Atlas and the Soudan were tossed up from 
briny depths ; the Arabian peninsula, the Deserts of Zin and 
Shur, Lib} T a and the salt Kuveers of Persia ; the prairies and 
deserts of America, and the sterile steppes of Russia, Tartary, and 
Siberia, appeared with all their dreary majesty and chilly horror 
upon the surface of the visible world. By this great convulsion, 
China was torn from Japan, — a family was separated, and lo ! 
what a difference has developed between the two branches of that 
self-same tribe ! And then go back to their common progenitors, 
from whom themselves and the Tartars sprung, and see what time 
has done for either branch ! The Carribean Islands were 
wrenched from Columbia's main ; the Greek Archipelago was 
brought into being ; the climates of whole continents were changed, 
which is proved from the fact that bones of tropical animals and 



188 after death; 

remains of tropical plants are now found in frozen regions, and 
the plants and remains of northern fauna now exhumed from tropi 
cal graves. ... I believe I have handled things fashioned by 
men who lived before that terrible devastation. And there can be 
but little doubt that the cyclopean structures of Etruria, the stately 
pyramids of Egypt and Central America ; the imposing and 
mournful ruins of Palenque, Copan, Uxmal, Kuzan, Chichen, 
and Cuzco, are remnants left of those which were swept away in 
that awful ruin. Death rode in many chariots in that dreadful 
hour ; and men and animals perished by carbonic, sulphurous, and 
nitrogenic blasts, those only escaping who occupied favorable 
localities." Thus has it been ! Thus, and more dreadful may it 
be again ! The earth is gestating new and better children : fear- 
ful will be her parturition ; but joyous will the family be ! 

I do not say that there were no people upon the spiritual zones 
at that period, for there were ; but I do say that there were vast 
numbers of disbodied people roaming about the earth long before 
there was a place prepared for them above the world ; or rather 
off the world, for there is no spiritual world either above or beloiv 
us; for above, as the earth swings in space T is due north, whei-e 
flows the stream from upper land, and where is a vast open sea of 
space, through which come the meteors and aerolites as we cross 
their paths. A similar opening is at the south pole. Hence the 
centre of the supernal zones is directly above the equator. 

While these armies of dead people were slowly rising intellectu- 
ally, the earth itself was refining and giving off its unappropriated 
essences ; the zone and zones were gradually formed, and as grad- 
ually receded to their present distances from the earth ; the polar 
rivers began to flow ; the spiritual people discovered them ; were 
pleased ; made experiments ; trusted to chance ; launched them- 
selves upon the ascending tide, and were conveyed to a scene 
immeasurably superior to the one just left behind, — to their house 
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Ah ! what a joyful 
hour that was ! It was only equalled by that of a wicked Baptist 
minister of New Orleans, a man who had lived by hypocrisy all 
his life, fell sick, and felt sure that when death closed his eyes 
he would only open them again in the midst of perdition, which he 
also felt he richly deserved. He died horribly ; but what was the 
almost ludicrous surprise of the ex-Reverend Charles Hall at 



OR, DISBODTED MAN. 189 

finding himself unscorched in the midst of a crowd of former 
bacchanals, in the upper land, who were gathered around him to 
see the effect of his awaking to the reality. When he felt certain 
that he was safe from hell and the clutches of the devil, a more 
uproariously joyful man was never seen before or since. 

Curiosity is the spur of knowledge, the road to wisdom, and the 
key to all mystery. It opens all doors, and is operative upon all 
men precisely alike, — save only in degree. Of course the immi- 
grants immediately began to explore their new-found home, and it 
was not long before they came across another river flowing away 
toward a large brown ball floating out upon the sky ; and they saw 
another river flowing away from that ball toward what they rea- 
soned, correctly, to be the other side of their own newly discovered 
home. The brown ball was a big bead strung upon a silver cord 
hung around God's neck, — or the inscrutable something beyond 
themselves. And so they tried another ride through space ; made 
the trip in safety ; saw their friends ; told the good news to all 
they could, and returned to their blessed homes again. And thus 
was established the first express route between heaven and earth, 
and their example has been followed to the present hour. 

Originally the zone was but a few hundred miles across ; it '-ex- 
panded, however, continually, — the finer substances at the center, 
the coarser near the edges. It is graded, as are those above'~l*k 
Even the earth is not a lump of dead matter, but is a living organ- 
ism, with the tides for its pulse, volcanoes for its breathing appa- 
ratus, its gastric juice is white fire, and forests are its hair. Its 
surface constantly becomes more porous, and penetrable to astral, 
lunar, solar, and spiritual (ethereal and ethyllic), influences from 
the external ; while its internal heats, its wonderful chemical ac- 
tion upon its own substance, its evolution of gases, its refining 
retorts, and man's handiwork, materially modify it year by year ; 
and its superficial magnitude continually enhances and increases ; 
as in fact is the case with other planets of the solar system. Even 
our moon's actual diameter will show a sensible increase over 
measurements taken a' century ago. Especially is this true of 
Venus and Mercury, both of which, with the earth, are receding 
from the sun to make room both for the small planet that revolves 
nearer the sun than any other, and for the tremendous fiery ring 
ere long to be cast off from the sun, and which, as with the case 



190 after death; 

of all the comets belonging to this solar world, will one day con- 
solidate into earths like this. 

On the zone the people naturally divided off first into two, and 
then three, and finally into seven classes, representing so many 
grades of intelligence, and as they advanced in these respects, new 
laws came into play, and orderly development speedily followed. 
As the superficies of the zone increased, and the people advanced 
in knowledge and numbers, each division again divided by seven, 
and again into sub-sections. There was a time when the highest 
society was not equal to the intelligence and refinement of the 
grog-shop philosophers of the present day. And the time will 
come when the lowest society there will be higher, more intelligent 
and refined than any collection of people now on earth, even if 
selected especially for the contrast. "What, then, will be the 
seraphic development and condition of the highest sections of the 
seventh grand division? Of the seven grades of the second zone? 
— the next ? — the next ? — the last ? — of the solar zones ? Stop ! 
Human imagination can no further go ! That the same relative 
distances separate minds is certain ; and that progress is alike 
operative in all parts of the human universe is as true as figures 
themselves, and is known to us by reason, revelation, inspection, 
anda intromission. 

'•To-day I saw the sides of the first zone clearly. It resembled 
mottled marble ; it was clear, palpable, and seemingly quite solid. 

The question is asked : Would it be possible for the earth to 
be hurled out into open space from the centre and embrace of its 
encircling girdles ? Could it fall through ? and if so, what would 
become of the zones ? I answer : Nothing short of an utter shat- 
tering of the globe could alter its relations to the girdle. But if 
that should occur then the zone would sail away to, and become 
incorporated with, the sphere of the planet nearest like its own, 
which in our case would be that of Mars, to whose societies all our 
spiritual people would instantly be transferred. This has already 
occurred, for the sphere of the lost planet has become part and 
parcel of Jupiter's sphere, and constitutes ohe of his visible belts. 

Thus, having answered the questions propounded, let us now 
resume our subject. 

(aa) We take another flight across the glorious country, and 
arrive within the boundaries of the sixth grand division of earth's 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 191 

spiritual girdle. Human language is all too poor to do justice to 
the more than auroral magnificence of the magic realms we are 
daring to approach ; and yet, ineffable thought ! supremely glori- 
ous and superlatively gorgeous though it is, and so far, so very 
far, transcending human conceptions here, of blest Utopias and 
bright arcadias, it is not even the half-way house for human pil- 
grims on their everlasting journey through the heavens. 

The scene is semi-equatorial ; it is entirely different from any- 
thing beneath, either on the earth or in the spheres ; and at first 
view it seems impossible that there can possibly be nobler men, 
more lovely women, fairer children, happier people or delightful 
situation. The extreme breadth of this division greatly exceeds 
that of any of those at which we have glanced. 

The transcendent beauty, intellectual power, dignity, and maj- 
esty of the teeming myriads of our brothers and sisters who dwell 
in this celestial region, exceed all human powers of description. 
While gazing at the glowing scene, a mystery was revealed to me, 
namely : It was given me to know the sphere, division, grade, or 
section, to which any man or woman on the earth interiorly per- 
tains and belongs ; and to know that the signs are printed plainly 
both upon human hands and faces. This is a new branch of 
Tirau-clairism ; and by seeing either a person or a three-quarter 
portrait, and a portrait of the left hand, I am absolutely certain 
of being able to decide to what sphere, grade, division, section, 
order, or fraternity, such persons may belong ; for the information 
is printed upon them just as plainly as is any one of their features 
which all may see. The knowledge then and thus acquired is 
one of the branches of science taught in the schools of this grand 
division. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE SIXTH GRAND DIVISION OF SPIRIT LAND — THINGS TAUGHT THERE — THE ORIGIN 
OF ALL MATTER — THE LOST PLEIAD FOUND — A LIGHTLESS SUN — THE LAW OF 
PERIODICITY — SOUL-STORMS — CREDO — A NEW REVELATION OF A MOST ASTOUND- 
ING CHARACTER — THE SEVENTH GRAND DIVISION OF MORNING LAND — ITS SUPER- 
LATIVE GLORIES — WILL MAN LOSE HIS IDENTITY IN THE GODHEAD? — A MOURNFUL, 
YET GLORIOUS FACT — A HOME FOR ALL, ALL BREAKING, BLEEDING HEARTS, ALL 
SORROW-LADEN SOULS — A NEW REVELATION CONCERNING SLEEP — WHY A SPIRIT 

CANNOT BE DISMEMBERED — CURIOUS — THE COMING MAN MISCEGENATION — SOUL'S 

FLIGHT TO THE SOLAR ZONE AND SECOND GIRDLE. 

In all cases these divisions are discreted and in no sense con- 
tinuous. There are unappropriated tracts or sections separating 
them ; there are stated routes or passage-ways leading from each 
section and division on one side of the equator to the correspond- 
ing ones on the other, and above and below. 

The fauna and flora there are beautiful beyond comparison. 
They cannot be likened unto any corresponding existence ever 
seen elsewhere. The trees are vocal with melody beyond descrip- 
tion, and these melodies are perfectly lawful; that is to say, lan- 
guages, ideas, and expressions that are clearly understood and 
translatable by the human people there-away. The architecture 
is wholly indescribable by reason of its magnificence, its grand 
simplicity, and the infinite diversities of form, of its myriad pal- 
aces, and dwelling-places, exceeding in size, material, and beauty, 
anything yet imagined upon earth. They, in material, resemble 
nothing so much as a soap-bubble inflated to the collapsing point, 
for they contain and reflect a thousand kaleidoscopic hues , shim- 
mering gloriously in the pearly light of Aidenn. Vast theatres, 
museums, colleges, parks, laboratories, and universities are plen- 
tifully distributed about that auroral country. In the institutions 
of learning are taught all the arts and sciences known here, with 
many that are yet undreamed of. Here teachers from the solar 
division (themselves taught by missionaries from the zones) ex- 

192 



AFTER DEATH; OR, DISBODIED MAN. 193 

plain the true principles of knowledge, through the means of the 
solar language, — a perfected phonic system, in which a single 
sound stands for a single thought, and words are perfect pictures 
of even convolute ideas ; the exact theories of mental action ; 
the true laws and gradations of matter — generic and special ; the 
true account of the imponderables, and the intricate laws govern- 
ing the same ; the calculus, integral and differential of life, anti 
and prezonal ; the esoteric laws and principles of mental evolu- 
tion, as modified or caused by nervous states and physical condi- 
tions ; the seven grades of love and its forty-nine modifications ; 
monadology ; the laws of chemical, mechanical, social, psychical, 
magnetic, electric, spiritual, physical, moral, nerval, amatory, 
mental, odic, and reflective affinity ; the rationale of contra-resem- 
blances, physical, religious, moral, political, natural, spontaneous, 
and acquired ; the wonderful law of differentiation. Here also 
geology is taught in its purity ; as also spirit's departure toward, 
and its return from, matter ; how there is but one single base to 
matter in all, especially its metallic, forms and modes ; how that 
one base, associated with from one to six or seven gaseous accom- 
paniments, constitutes the various metals known to man ; as iron 
three, silver four, gold five, and so on ; different proportions de- 
termining the characters of the various metallic substances ; here 
is taught why and how heat is but a mode of motion ; how fire is 
but another form of it ; how fire is spiritual substance in violent 
action, in its last analysis, whose efficient cause is in God himself : 
here is taught how and why all matter is but one form or mode of 
spirit ; that all solar bodies were first material germs from the 
abyss, and then immense spheres of ethyl in violent motion ; then 
tremendous globes of incandescent vapor ; that all suns discharge 
their cooling crusts in annular rings, which subsequently conglo- 
bate into nascent planets, the outermost of which rotate and revolve 
generally on the plane of the former solar periphery, the interven- 
ing distance being developed by mutual recession and condensa- 
tion, consequent upon their irradiation of heat. Secondly, in an- 
nular rings, which being denser at given points, impel the entire 
fiery mass through space, as comets, themselves destined to be- 
come planets in due process of time ; and these are the reasons 
why all the planets of this system are in the plane of the zodiacal 
zone, not far from the line of the solar equator ; and herein also is 
25 



194 AFTER DEATH; 

seen why the equators of both sun and earth, and therefore their 
poles are constantly shifting, more or less ; why the earth requires 
over sixteen thousand years to complete one cycle in space, 
equi-different from its axial and orbital revolutions, many of 
which are accomplished while the sun is making a single revo- 
lution around his distant centre, in the awful period already stated 
in this essay. I may here say that the dark sun near the path of 
Alcyone, was not always so, but is what is known to astronomy as 
" the lost Pleiad," because a few centuries ago its light faded, for 
reasons easily explainable, but not necessary to this treatise. It 
may be treated of in a future work dedicated to a description of 
the Planes Beyond. 

In the institutions the laws of motion, gravitation, magnetism, 
electricity, heat, light, polarization, are taught, statically and 
dynamically. Meteorology, cometology, and all solar and planet- 
ary laws are explained. Ascending to other educational institu- 
tions, we find that vast hosts of people are instructed in the high- 
er branches of social science, and they find out for the first time 
that the law of periodicity is an eternal, unvarjdng one, operative 
alike, in all departments of the physical, moral, mental, social, and 
psychical universes. They see, for the first time clearly, why a 
certain word will occur just so often exactly beneath another word 
just like it in writing, why we are at stated periods more like 
devils than angels ; why storms prevail in the soul as in the air ; 
and learn for the first time that all mental, social, and moral evo- 
lution follow laws of periodicity as regularly as the seasons or 
any other physical phenomena. . Here they learn that the Egyp- 
tians did not build the Pyramids, but that they were erected thou- 
sands of years before the existence of the people so-called ; that 
there have been four preceding eras of civilization starting from 
the people of This, Memphis, and Philoe; thatlsis, Osiris, Brahma, 
and Gautama are comparatively modern people, therefore that 
k< Adam " was not the first man by ten thousand generations, and 
that all these epochs of civilization are discreted from each other 
by interregnums of not less than five thousand years each ; that 
the earth may be said to be periodically renewed, and that the 
civilization in existence at the beginning of the earth's epoch (six- 
teen thousand solar years in length) is invariably replaced by 
another of a different genus at its termination. 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 195 

In all these, and a thousand more similarly novel, useful, and 
delightsome studies, the people of this blissful region find them- 
selves much more profitably employed than they possibly could be 
in tooting on any number of horns, silver, or copper, or in playing 
everlasting Old Hundreds on golden harps for the special delecta- 
tion of the Presbyterian God ! 

The entire career of human kind in the series of divisions and 
sections here treated of, are but so many ascending. grades or classes 
in what may properly be called the great university of man's second 
stage of existence, the highest, or graduating class of which, is that 
of the seventh or equatorial grand division. 

On earth we are merely rudimentary at best, and are only 
primary pupils at the highest. On the zones we enter and pass 
through the preparatory or intermediate grades, and graduate 
from the last department into the Freshman classes of God's 
great college in another sphere of being. That college is the 
limitless universe, material and ethereal. Every successive stage 
of human career is but an ascensive step from one class of that 
college to another ; but the graduating point of all is what neither 
man nor angels know, simply for the reason that they are not 
omniscient or ubiquitous, — both of which are prerogatives that 
belong to the great mystery, or God, alone. 

And yet I have much that I could truly say, concerning human 
kind in the upper worlds of space, infinitely surpassing in marvel- 
lous truth the loftiest fact, idea, conception, or revelation herein set 
forth, or that ever yet fell from my tongue or pen. It may happen 
that some reputed seer may dispute the correctness of that herein, 
or hereafter to be, revealed ; yet, let this be as it may, I have re- 
vealed nothing but truth precisely as I saw it, and as it has been 
handed down to me from hundreds of actors in the scenes de- 
scribed. 

The creed I believe in, and which is essentially that of the 
highest circle in the world above us, is the same as that announced 
in the 13th century by the Abbe Porteus of Xeres, in Spain. It 
has scarcely been equalled, never surpassed, by the loftiest phi- 
losophers of earth or Aidenn. This creed I here transcribe, and 
commend to all mankind as the most perfect yet evolved from the 
human intellect, and when it shall be that of all mankind we may 
look for the speedy advent of the good time coming. 



196 after death; 

(bb) I believe in God, the universal law, the all-pervading spirit, 
omnipotent, omnipresent, immutable, infinite, and eternal ; ruling the 
processes of all existing things with wisdom, regularity, harmony, and 
perfection, and causing all these things to exert themselves for good. 

I believe that there is no evil in the world save that arising 
from obstructions to the processes of nature, and that upon these 
obstructions a penalty is imposed ; but that the processes possess- 
ing within themselves a corrective power, the evil is corrected, and 
the result is good. I believe that it is our duty to do all the good 
we can, and to avoid evil, by conforming to the regularities and 
harmonies of nature ; and this ? not for the hope of reward or fear 
of punishment, but in deep love and reverence of the Supreme 
Euler of all existing things. This matchless creed, it seems to me, 
embraces " the whole duty of man." 

(cc.) In the sixth grand division worship is crystallized, and 
assumes a higher tone and form than is yet known to, or con- 
ceivable by, earthly man. Music exists in a state of perfection not 
to be described in the cold, dull drapery of words ; and in that 
sphere man first obtains an inkling prophetic of his future sphere 
of activity, and begins to know that to be man at all is to finally 
be a creator — a god — or even a God! In that sphere also he 
realizes somewhat of the subtle meaning of the sentence " universal 
marriage." Parental, social, filial, passional, fraternal, and other 
loves now begin to concrete, crystallize, and deepen into general 
and universal love ; and an exquisite, melodious harmony of affec- 
tion commences to wed the denizens of that auroral abode into a 
union almost absolute and perfect. The diverse faculties are con- 
solidating into one, preparatory to the unfolding of a new series 
of organs and corresponding faculties, with which mankind will 
begin a new career when it shall have quitted the second for the 
third stage of the immortal career ! 

Here Pagan, Christian, Brahminical, Buddhistic, Greek, Ma- 
hometan distinctions between men and races begin to disappear, 
and all those deaths are swallowed up in victory ! The earthly 
passions, penchants, prejudices, are all outgrown. Vast societies, 
orders, communities, brotherhoods begin to mingle into one, for all 
separative barriers are being ■ thrown down and surmounted ; and 
all souls begin to come en rapport with the perfectly divine ; in 
consequence of which, all the asserted and so-called " beatitudes " 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 197 

and blisses of the fabled heavens of theological and ecclesiological 
lore are much, very much, more than realized. 

(dd) Lo ! We are approaching the seventh grand division. No 
human tongue or pen is equal to the description of the ineffable 
glories and grandeur of the scenes now bursting on the view ; for 
even those of the division below immeasurably surpass the wildest, 
most roseate, and impassioned vision of sybarite, poet, or en- 
thusiastic dreamer ; and what then shall be said of this section, 
where all things are as superior to those, as is a garden to a bleak 
and ston3 r wilderness ! A few men, while yet embodied have been 
permitted to catch a distant glimpse of that celestial country. 
One of these was Gautama Buddha, who called it the seventh 
Brahma-loka, and who believed it not only to be the supreme and 
highest heaven, in which he was, as others have been, mistaken, 
but he believed that there he and all others of the finally faithful 
would attain the divine degree of Narwana; absorption into Deity. 
He tasted of its bliss, and conceived that the next step of joy would 
amount to, and result in, virtual annihilation, — a swallowing up 
in God, an eternal oneness with him ; a loss of personal identity ; 
an everlasting fusion, just as a d,rop of water mingles inseparably 
with, and is forever lost in, the fathomless deeps of ocean ! In the 
sixth grand division are to be found a great many of the honored 
and revered ones of former ages, Zeno, Plato, Aristotle ; scores of 
Greek and Egyptian, Ninevite and Etruscan kings, princes, and 
notables ; scores of thousands who never had place or name among 
the world's great ; other scores of hundreds of the martyrs of all 
races and ages, including some very celebrated ones whose names 
I forbear to mention, but whose reputations are world-wide. In 
this same sixth division, under the inspiration of the solar division, 
the affairs of the earthly nations are discussed, and means and 
measures resolved upon, and thereafter carried out, whose ultimate 
results are the amelioration of the social, intellectual, moral, politi- 
cal, and spiritual condition of the peoples ; sometimes, as in the 
case of Italy, Sardinia, France, Russia, Turkey, Mexico, and the 
United States, wars, long and bloody, are precipitated, dreadful 
while they last, but regenerative in final results. At other times, 
and under similar impulses, they decide to so operate upon some 
selected earthly couple, as to produce a specific and important 
result, in the peculiar constitution of a child, whose subsequent 



198 AFTER death; 

career and mission is that of a hero or reformer of the world. 
There are many men thus moulded in existence, there have been 
many, and there will be many more. Such men are nearly always 
isolated and wretched to the last degree, seldom live long, perform 
their parts midst blood and' tears, and are generally crucified at 
every step from the cradle to the grave, yet 

" Departing, leave behind them 
Footsteps on the sands of Time." 

The seventh grand division can have but little said of it here, 
for the reason that it was not embraced in the general design of 
the present work, — I intending to make it the subject of a chapter 
in a work sequeling this, — if I live to write it. 

While it abounds with human beings, it bears scarcely any re- 
semblance to aught ever seen on earth ; .and yet I proclaim, in the 
light of principles well-known and universally operative, that the 
lowest society of the Spirit World, next to this identical earth of 
ours, will one day be in some marked respects superior to that 
resplendent zone, and then the first circle of the sixth grand divis- 
ion will far exceed the highest now existing in this solar system, 
and the seventh division of the zone of that era will be — ah, who 
can imagine what it will be? But this I know: that will be a 
mai-vellous epoch wherein the lowliest inhabitants of this world 
shall rank in the scale above the best, noblest, most intellectual, 
and spiritual, not only of us, here and now, but above the beatific 
dwellers of the zonal heaven, — the present perfect paradise of 
man! 

Omitting, then, till another occasion, all detailed description of 
the people of the equatorial societies, their appearance, powers, 
occupations, studies, scenery, edifices, arts, sciences, customs, and 
social structure, I shall close with a few lines regarding the prin- 
cipia culminating in the ineffable glories of the solar section and 
its peoples. 
/V People from earth are not necessitated to pass through all the 
sections in regular gradation ; for many are already fitted for asso- 
ciation with clubs, societies, orders, families, or communities in 
many of the sections and sub-sections of the second and third grand 
divisions, rarely for the fourth, and very Seldom indeed, if ever, for 
the fifth ; occasionally there is a man or woman here who ascends 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 199 

directly to the third section of the fourth division ; such, for in- 
stance, as Elizabeth Barret Browning, Frances S. Osgood, Letitia 
L. Landon, John Brown, of Ossawattomie, and those of that moral 
and mental stamp of all climes and ages. When persons die they 
gravitate to that particular society in any of the sections for which, 
on a general average, they .are best fitted. No matter what the 
peculiarity of their specific cast, grade of mind, or personal genius 
may be, there are people and places where they will be perfectly 
at home ; their entire development determining the precise spot in 
society for which they are peculiarly adapted. * 

The treatment or discussion of the science of foretelling future 
events lies not within my present design ; but that men there and 
here can foretell things, is quite certain; only that there they see 
clearly, and not through the glimmer as do we ; hence by the ex- 
ercise of that strange power they are often aware of the exact 
time when a friend on earth is about to die, and prepare themselves 
accordingly. But in the case of one who has been and worked 
in sj'mpathy with a special society, that society often make the 
grandest demonstrations in celebration of his or her arrival ; those 
poor ones who have toiled through life, in the good cause of truth, 
all alone and unaided, midst thorny paths with naked feet, head 
bared to the pelting storms of undeserved sorrow and grief, hands 
all torn, hearts aching ready to burst, souls bowed down, and 
bloody sweat oozing from the brows, are happily comforted there. 

Preparations are made for the advent of these tired souls who 
need so much care and rest. Cottages and palaces just suited to 
them, and around which the lovely forms of tender hearts are flit- 
ting, are prepared, and the dead-to-earth are there conducted, 
where sometimes they sleep on flowery couches for an entire 
month, during which time they are inhaling the vigor-giving at- 
mosphere of Aidenn. 

Having incidentally mentioned sleep, I may as well, in a few 
words, relate what I have recently discovered concerning that phe- 
nomena. Sleep is the result of the inhalation of a very subtile, 
ethereal fluid, filling the interstices of the outer air ; it is breathed 
in by all vegetable and animal being ; its action is positive, some- 
times to' the extent not only of closing all the outer avenues of sense, 
by its somnific, yet strengthening effects ; but it can render the 
entire being heedless of pain. It is a peculiar aerial fluid, gen- 



•" 



200 AFTER death; 

eratecl by the friction of light upon the electro-magnetic sea above 
and around us. It is a fine, elastic, and powerful sort of mag- 
netism ; and one of its offices is, by its friction with the nervous 
fluids, to create a peculiar form of electricity, which not only 
charges the digestive apparatus with vital power, but effects the 
change of food, etc., into tissue. All things grow in sleep ; all 
things waste without it. One step more : No two particles in the 
human body touch at all ; no two atoms contact. The spirit in 
man is a reticulated structure, — a very fine sieve, whose particles, 
so to speak, touch at seven points. They are star-shaped, and 
their contact at these points is absolute. Through this network 
circulation goes on. It remains so forever, only that after death 
the interstices become exceedingly minute. 

Every part of the body in life is full of minute cells, to the 
' number of quadrillions ; and as the life-principle, rendered polar, 
and charged with elemental force, so the sleep-principle rushes along 
the myriad-telegraph system of the body, each one of these cells 
becomes filled therewith, and we become stronger and refreshed. 
These cells are so many galvanic retorts, and they manufacture 
their contents, — the coarser into flesh, blood, bone, hair, nails, 
lymph, saliva, pancreatic juices, milk, tears, and so on, — while 
the finer is converted into lochia, sperm, prostatic liquid, and 
spirit, the crystallized, immortal man ; and nearly all this while 
slumber seals the senses. When the supply in these cells gives 
out, generally those of the brain and nervous centres first, they 
immediately yearn for more, and we grow " sleepy." "When full 
or nearly so again, we awaken ; when partially full only, we dream ; 
and this, in short, is a true philosophy and rationale of sleep, 
and is here first given to the world. 

In the entire categories of spiritual worlds, spontaneity takes 
the place of repression here, and all effort has a direct tendency 
toward the correction of angularities, eccentricities, and those gen- 
eral and special insanities which characterize all civilized people 
more or less, especially those concerning social life and marriage. 
In the higher departments there, human love between the sexes is 
amative, magnetic, spiritual, and even propagative, but of ideas 
and higher states, not offspring, or young spirits. But generally 
those people expand soonest who were parents on the earth. Wo- 
man there, as here, is the highest form and embodiment of love ; 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 201 

and the expression thereof is the source of the soul's most thrilling 
joy. There lies the fountain of all human pleasure, the eternal 
spring of all progress and effort in the field of discovery ; for inves- 
tigation would count but little but for her smile's reward ; and ex- 
ertion were tiresome but for her appreciation and encouragement. 
The secret of heaven is to be a true law unto one's self, on 
earth, and in the arching skies. All in the higher divisions know 
full well that law against Nature is law against God ; that to 'be 
in harmony with all surroundings is to tap perennial springs from 
within, whose murmuring waters bear joy-bubbles to every part 
and hall of being ; that the law of sex is the law of power and in- 
spiration ; hence they love one another; and unless the sex-love, 
and philoprogenitive nature be developed on earth and unfolded 
in the heavens, human progress is far less swift and sure. . These 
are basic loves, the rich and fruitful soil whence spring luxuriant 
aftergrowths of myriad joys and pleasures. Some trumpet-tongued 
son of God will yet spring from the bosom of the people here, well 
fitted for his work, and he will tell the world, in tones not to be 
mistaken, that man and woman have, among other inalienable 
rights, that of being truly and thoroughly known by all others, and 
of being justly rated and read. The table of contents of the human 
soul may be found under the head-line "Love;" and whoso thor- 
oughly understands the index will easily turn to the proper leaf. 
He will tell them that men and women must have love, and of the 
right sort, too, and that failing to obtain it they peddle themselves 
upon life's highways for a sorry substitute, painfully realizing that 
a lean and poor, is far better than no love at all. He will, per- 
chance, demonstrate that one of the causes of prostitution and 
crime — and a very efficient one too — may be found springing 
from one of the holiest fountains of the human soul ; but turned 
aside by "obstructions," and rendered foul and turbid by reasou 
of the murk and slime through which it is forced to flow, in 
the fens and swamps of miscalled " social " life. In that day that 
man will plead with heaven's eloquence, for the poor harlot, the 
thief, and lowly-organized and worse-cared-for and instructed ones 
of the world ; echoing the divine words of the man of Bethlehem, 
" Son, daughter ! neither do I condemn thee ! Go tlry way, and 
sin no more ! " Oh, the inestimable power and blessings resident 
in one kind'word ! That man, as a man, will point the race to the 
26 



202 AFTER death; 

true causes and the cure of crime. World, hail that conquering 
hero here when he comes ! Behold I, who am not worthy to un- 
loose his shoes, proclaim him to be now coming to meet us on the 
way! 

The laws and operations of Nature are from unity to diversity, 
and forward, not back, again to unity. Probably all families 
started from single pairs ; increased and diversified into classes, 
finally consolidating into different nations, developing various 
languages, habits, customs, genius, and modes of thought, relig- 
ious and intellectual. All human speech started from monosyllabic 
sounds, at first phonetic, and gradually changing as human wants 
multiplied and ingenuity suggested modifications and improve- 
ments. Thus it developed into different forms of speech, — the 
two great classes, Iranian and Turanian, finally consolidating into 
the crystalline and concrete English, — the culmination of them 
all. As with their speech, so with the speakers ; they inter- 
mingled, and each cross improved the blood and stamina intel- 
lectually and constitutionally, until, as on this northern continental 
section of the globe, the race is rapidly blending and making the 
concrete man, or perfect miscegen ; for here all bloods are inter- 
mingling. All human faculties start from similar unitary points, 
as do all animated things from the simple cell. The mere animal 
instinct of feeding — a unit — develops as the child grows, — 
whether that child be an individual or a young species or nation. 
Food, in either case, begets strength and the desire to provide, 
which in turn suggests appropriate means of gratifying the wants. 
And so the person or nation grows until a single power has be- 
gotten a hundred new ones, and mere animal wants have increased 
the mentality to the extent of a hundred faculties or more ; all of 
which consolidate toward unity again ; but a unity embracing 
them all under the grand name of intuition, or clear-seeing, in all 
the hundred directions ; or faculty-windows of the mind ! In the 
first five grand divisions man's faculties spread, concrete, diver- 
sify, there being but a slight degree of crystallization in the last, 
— where he just begins to ripen and be generally intuitive, or in- 
stant-seeing and much-knowing. In the sixth, the faculties have 
an unmistakable tendency toward consolidarity, oneness, or unity, 
a perfect and complete blending or fusion of the whole into one 
extraordinary, intellectually, ubiquitous, comprehending central 



OB, DISBODIED MAN. 203 

power or faculty. This wonderful change continues through the 
career of the seven sections of the equatorial division or solar sec- 
tion of the first zone, and this goes on until in the last period of 
his stay in the last section he again reaches unity, — that is to say, 
all his separate organs or faculties are blended into one grand 
faculty or oneness, and he becomes all knowing of everything be- 
neath and around him, except, of course, himself. Finally, he 
reaches the highest possible perfection attainable there, — becomes 
more than we imagine of archangel or seraph ; earth can give him 
no more ; he has exhausted all that that zone can impart, and he 
prepares, not to die, but to slumber awhile, during which he takes 
his everlasting flight from that glorious sphere, as a permanent 
resident, to far loftier ones in the ascending series, until he reaches 
the incomprehensible grandeur of the solar zone, whereof in future 
days I may be permitted to speak. 

Arrived at the second girdle of earth, he finds it divided and 
sectioned off into sevens, as before ; but now he has, as a new- 
born child, — on reaching that marvellous world, — but one single 
faculty, but that one is the crystallized, consolidated unitization of 
hundreds theretofore developed on his amazing pilgrimage through 
two worlds. And now from that amazing unity, with that tremen- 
dous capital he goes on, — for remember he starts from the low- 
est grade of his new state, — he goes on to a new diversity, to 
the development of other hundreds of faculties, far greater than 
that mighty one with which he sets out ; with that capital he 
accumulates mental and spiritual riches in profuse abundance, 
contrasted with which all his other accumulations were poverty it- 
self ! What these latter are, their nature and direction, I may 
state at another time. 

The man goes on and upward, section by section, grade after 
grade, division succeeding division, till he reaches the sixth, 
whereat the same law of unitization from diversity again comes in 
play, a new ripening begins, another unitization commences, re- 
sulting in "another crystallization into unitary faculty and power. 
In the seventh section of the last division of this second zone or 
girdle, all these tremendous powers, qualities, and faculties con- 
verge and blend and mingle into one. He has again reached the 
plane of unity, — has become as a God. And now a stupendous 
fact. When he shall have received all that he can in even that re- 



204 AFTER DEATH; 

splendent stage of his career, he has but two faculties developed ; 
but these two are inconceivable to mortal man. He is destined to 
develop as many of these as he did those of earth, — whose num- 
bers are over one hundred. A greater fact still : When he shall 
have as many of those royal powers unfolded as he had of primary 
faculties, all these will in turn consolidate into unity, and he will 
begin a career totally inconceivable by the loftiest imagination on 
earth, except from actual revelation and intromission under the 
most favorable circumstances. 

Even after we shall have exhausted all the grand and unutterable 
glories and ineffabilities of the earth and all its encircling zones, 
our career is but just begun, as I could, were permission accorded, 
easily and triumphantly demonstrate. But the time may yet 
come. ... Thus it is in one sense, most unreservedly and 
emphatically true that, — 

" When we've been there ten thousand years, 
Bright shining as the sun, 
We've no less days to sing God's praise 
h Than when we first begun." 



It is a happj' thought that, after all our trials and sufferings and 
sorrows here ; after all the war, bloodshed, and carnage, deceit 
and slander, treachery and ingratitude of this world, and the lives 
we are compelled to lead, we shall one day pass over the boun- 
dary, and find our pathway illumined by the sun of certainty, rest, 
and happiness, on the further shore ! 

The days of priestcraft and eolism are numbered, and those of 
positive revelation are already dawning. They herald the coming 
jubilee ; and in the noontide of that day all sin will be overcome 
of practical, unbought righteousness. 

" In that new childhood of the world, 

Life of itself shall dance and play ; v 

Fresh blood through Time's shrunk veins be hurled, 
And labor meet delight half way." 

God himself is now speaking unmistakably to his children, both 
by the logic and speech of events, and through the lips of the tri- 
umphantly risen dead, bidding them rise from their sloth and folly 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 205 

to the house not made with hands. It is a blessed thought that 
our real trials cease with death, and that our truest, best, and 
highest education begins after we quit these frail bodies, and this 
scene of strife and confusion, suspicion and distrust. 

Thus my present task is finished, and it only remains to review 
the unwise positions and declarations of a class of misled and mis- 
leading teachers of the people. 

[Note. — In reference to a point broached in the foregoing, I 
submit the subjoined, from a recent British work, — 

" Planets Destroyed. — The belief that the world is ultimately 
to be destroyed by fire is supported by the discovery that such a 
fate has befallen far larger planets than ours. French astrono- 
mers assert that no fewer than fifteen hundred fixed stars have 
vanished from the firmament within the last three hundred years. 
Tycho Brahe gives an interesting account of a brilliant star of the 
largest size, which, on account of its singular radiance, had be- 
come the special object of his daily observation for several months, 
during which the star gradually became paler, until its final disap- 
pearance. La Place states that one of the vanished fixed stars of 
the Northern hemisphere afforded undoubtable evidence of having 
been consumed by fire. At first the star was dazzling white, next 
of glowing red and yellow lustre, and finally it became pale and 
of an ashen color. The burning of the star lasted sixteen months, 
when this sunny visitor, to which perhaps a whole series of planets 
may have owed allegiance, finally departed and became invisible."] 



NOTE CONCERNING MAGIC MIRRORS AS A MEANS OF BEHOLDING 

SUPERNAL VERITIES. 

t 

The famous Dr. Dee, of London, and thousands of others before him, 
and since, too, used a plate of -polished cannel coal, and other similar 
objects, as an instrument whereby to scan spiritual mysteries. Some 
sturdy, matter-of-fact people in these days laugh at the idea of an oval 
concave, black mirror enabling a person to see spiritual realities ; but I 
can produce hundreds of persons, right here in America, who will testify 
to the absolute and startling reality and truth of what Dee and others 
claim in that regard. Says one of the first seers that ever lived, — 



206 AFTER DEATH ; OR, DISBODIED MAN. 

"What if upon the Mirror's face serene 

Your lot in life be written ? What, if its pearly sphere 

Disclose to mental view the far and dark unseen ? 
This seemeth strange, yet doth to me appear. 

I, far events can often clearly presage, 

And in my thrice sealed, dark, prospective glass 

Foresee what future days shall bring to pass. 

" There, various news I learn, of love and strife, 
Of peace and war, health, sickness, death, and life; 
Of loss and gain, of famine and of store ; 
Of storms at sea, and travels on the shore ; 
Of business speculation, good luck in the air; 
Of when to stop, or go; 'gainst danger to prepare; 
Of turns of fortune; changes in the State; 
The fall of favorites; projects of the great. 

"the Mystical 

Hath been to me a more familiar face 

Than that of woman, — man ; and in its solemn school 

Of dim and solitary discipline, 

Learned I the languages of other peopled worlds." 

And scarce a week goes by that I have not to select mirrors for people 
who prefer to pursue that ancient route to clairvoyance. The days of 
crystal-seeing are not yet past, and in my opinion the interior spiritual 
vision can be more easily and quickly attained in that way, than by the 
slower process of mesmeric induction, — certainly at less expense of 
time, trouble, and money, for a good Tkinue glass is certainly, for mes- 
meric purposes, worth all the mesmerists in the land, to say nothing of 
the avoidance of the known dangers of mesmerization, — a practice to 
which I am opposed on grounds easily seen and understood. 



CHAPTER XVIL* 

A PHILOSOPHICAL ERROR CORRECTED — CONCLUSION. 

Within a few brief years many, very many novel and exceed- 
ingly strange, not to say hurtful, ideas and notions have sprung 
up, to challenge attention and demand analysis ; nor have they 
failed to impress themselves upon the plastic front of this, the 
most remarkable age, and eventful epoch, of the great world's his- 
tory. No notion, theory, hypothesis, or statement, no matter 
how wild, immoral, obscene, or ridiculous, but will find some to 
accept and believe it, even with all its palpable absurdities. Uto- 
pianisms, of all sorts and kinds, are rife to-day in the public mind. 
Strange, wild vagaries abound on all sides ; and we encounter ex- 
tremes of the most violent description, turn whithersoever we may. 
In fact, as a general rule, the wilder the vagary, the more it de- 
parts from common sense and innate respectability, the more 
certain it is to attract attention and enlist recruits, — so deeply 
runs the abnormal vein through the bodies politic, social, philo- 
sophic, and religious. Sinners of all sorts, but more especially 
those with penchants toward a particular kind of license, have al- 
ways been on the qui vive for plausible excuses for their derelic- 
tions from the path of common honesty and moral and personal 
rectitude. Nor have the so-called philosophers of the times been 
at all backward or slow in the work of supplying these excuses. 
Every sort and species of villany is, in these days, attempted to 
be based upon — Sacred Scripture. Your Mormon "seals" a 
dozen or two wives, according to Scripture ; your affinity man -or 
woman claims holy inspiration as his or her warrant for infracting 
every social law; the Perfectionist who lives in " complex mar- 
riage " with two hundred and seventy-four —females — (for to 
call them women were a desecration of that holy name ! ) tells you 

* The substance of this chapter was originally published under the nom de plume of 
Cynthia Temple. 

207 



208 AFTER death; 

that " the true Church of Christ constitutes one great soul ; " and 
that the union between its members, of right, ought to be of the 
most intimate character. And these people have the effrontery to 
assert that in so doing they are but following out the example and 
precept of Jesus the Blessed ! People there are by thousands 
who seek to so freely translate texts of Scripture, or philosophical 
statements, that they can go on doing just as passion prompts, 
and yet apparently not transcend the law. Language, in these 
days, is twisted and distorted to such an extent, that one can 
hardly affirm that black is black, or that two and two are four, lest 
some so-called reformer or transcendental genius steps forth, and 
in a long disquisition proves to you that " black is not black, for 
the simple reason that the sheen upon which the eye strikes is in- 
variably white ; and that so far from two and two being four, they 
are really only three, because the mind can never conceive of sim- 
ilarities. There are no absolute resemblances in figures, volume, 
or anj^thing else ; wherefore two and two must make either more 

or less than four ! " 

i 

" And so with words the fellow plays, 
Talks much, yet still he nothing says." 

Sophistry reigns king to-day, and rules it with a strong hand 
over every domain of human life, and human endeavor and in- 
terest. There are those who will give you a "moral law" and 
Scriptural authority for the commission of every crime in the en- 
tire calendar. There are others who take refuge behind the walls 
of an exploded Optimism ; call aloud to the passer-by ; bid him 
or her take full advantage of the times ; eat, drink, and be merry, 
for " Whatever is is Bight)" — itself, in so far forth as human 
life, interest, and action are concerned, one of the most pestilent 
fallacies, and philosophical absurdities, that ever seduced a human 
being from the paths of moral rectitude and virtue. The abomi- 
nable notion has gone forth, and to-day is slowly but surely not 
only sapping the foundations of domestic and social happiness, 
but is certainly infusing its deadly miasma over all the land. 

People in these days talk much of " liberty," when there is al- 
ready too much freedom in some respects; for "philosophers" 
(Heaven save the mark !) have talked so much of liberty to do this, 
and liberty to do the other, that instead of wearing the goddess' 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 209 

crown, she has of late been clothed in the wanton's cap and robe. 
Virtue has seceded from liberty ; and vice, for a time, has usurped 
her throne ; but, with Heaven's aid, we trust to drive her from the 
seat. 

Within a comparatively recent period, the Popeish doctrine that 
whatever exists is just as the Eternal One decreed and designed, 
has gone forth to the wide world under the express sanction of 
more than one pseuclo great and honored name ; and it has re- 
ceived the implied, if not the direct, countenance of scores of 
others, not a few of whom call themselves thinkers, philosophers, 
and philanthropists. This dogma, as it is (and it cannot fail to be 
popularly understood), is the most formidable and dreadful bat- 
tery ever levelled against human happiness from the frowning ram- 
parts of hell itself; for, while apparently encouraging a reliance on 
the goodness of our heavenly Father, it in reality sets a high pre- 
mium on vice, and is the direct result of the most appalling and 
dreadful enginery of error, attacking man, as it does, in his weak- 
est points, and throwing a glamour over the moral sense which at 
once shuts out the benign light of all that is pure, and good, and 
true. It is the grpat gun of wickedness, — ignores all human re- 
sponsibility, fosters all sorts of iniquity, prolongs the reign of evil, 
retards the dawn of righteousness, makes a person a mere natural 
machine, stultifies the moral sense, sears the conscience, libels na- 
ture, blasphemes the Infinite, panders to the basest of all appe- 
tites and prejudices, dethrones the virtues, and inaugurates discord 
and error. It tears down at a single effort every rampart of do- 
mestic virtue, and becomes the authoritative warrant for license 
of every sort, and for every kind of wrong-doing, libertinism, and 
profligac3 r , that barbarous minds can invent. 

Surely, something can, and ought to be clone, to extract the 
fangs of this viper, and to send it back writhing to its home, 
among all the other festering falsehoods of the past ages ; to send 
it back to associate with all other foul and loathsome things that 
have ever cursed the earth. 

May the world have a safe and speedy deliverance from this last 
new pirate ! At all events, I feel called upon to do my part to- 
ward this most desirable end ; and every man who remembers the 
word ' : mother," and recalls all the holy memories which cluster 
around it, — every man who has a sister, or presses an innocent 



210 AFTER DEATH; 

daughter to his heart, will gladly become my helper in this impor- 
tant labor. 

In a certain merely material aspect of the subject, it is undoubt- 
edly true that "whatever is is right;" but when the venue is 
changed to intellectual, social, moral, religious, and domestic 
grounds, then the affirmation is as foreign to the truth as any false- 
hood well can be. Take the civilized world at large, and not over 
ten persons in every one hundred can or will comprehend, or rest 
contented with the higher and nobler definition of the great pos- 
tulate, but a postulate only on the material, climatic, and other 
physical planes. On the contrary, if you affirm in the presence of 
one hundred persons that " it is all right," ten to one but that 
ninety of them will secretly roll the knowledge up, and profit by 
their — not your — intended definition thereof. It is human na- 
ture to take advantage of everything that promises to cut the re- 
straining cords, and permit a looseness of action, thought, and 
sentiment. There are scores of thousands in this vast empire, 
who, upon learning that the so-called great men and women of the 
world have asserted that all actions and all things are right and 
proper, will clap their hands in jubilance, and secretly, if not 
openly, avail themselves of the sophism to drive with a loose rein 
along the roads of life ; do all sorts of evil things ; give passion 
and prejudice full scope and play, and do their utmost to gratify 
self, heedless of the certain consequences that must accrue to 
themselves as individual integers of society, or to community as a 
whole. What care they if the walks and ways of life are trans- 
formed into practical realizations of pandemonium, so long as 
their ends are served by the removal of the restrictions, every 
barrier and mound of which is swept away by the little sentence 
"whatever is is right"? Not much, it seems to me. True it is, 
that all men are not either villains or badly disposed ; equally 
true it is, that all women are not at heart unchaste ; yet, if this 
modern doctrine be true, both may become so, and that, too, with- 
out violating any of God's laws ; for if they remain virtuous, it is 
all right ; if they sink into rotten filth and vice, it is all right 
still. 

Unmistakably this sophism is the most dangerous one that has 
yet arisen, either within or without the ranks of Spiritualism, — 
the great and prolific mother of a very singular family of ideas. 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 211 

But, it is said, the notion did not originate with those who believe 
in the advent of human spirits to the earth, and in their interfer- 
ence in mundane affairs. The advocates of the dogma do not pre- 
tend it to be a revelation from the other world ; yet it cannot be 
denied that very many of those who have been most active in 
foisting this last absurdity on the world, are also those who be- 
lieve devoutly in the ministration of departed souls. Justice, 
however, must be done, and therefore it is incumbent upon me to 
say that, notwithstanding many Spiritualists profess to believe 
this phase of Optimism, yet itself forms no essential part of the 
Spiritual creed ; and tens of thousands of this class of thinkers, 
reject the new ism in utter scorn. Only a few have clear concep- 
tions or realizations thereof. Some people say that they most de- 
voutly believe in infinite damnation ; heartily concur in the asser- 
tion that some are elected to reign in the courts of glory, and that 
some are God-voted to an eternal baking, roasting, broiling, grilling 
in the deeps of hell. No doubt these people are honest ; still all 
such, save rarely a lunatic, consider the chances of " number one " 
as most excellent for escape from, or evasion of, the fire-doom 
which they feel equally assured will be the lot of their neighbors, 
the numbers two, three, and four, and so on. Self-love rules this 
age. 

Saj^s G., in public confession, " Brothers and sisters, pray for 
me. I am the most heinous sinner, the vilest wretch on earth ; 
and, feeling the full enormity of' my wickedness, I can but have a 
blessed assurance that if my just deserts were meted out, I should 
at this moment be grilling on the bars of hell, over the belching 
flames of the eternal pit, fanned by the infinite wing of God's jus- 
tice." Mr. G. knows that he is not uttering his real sentiments. 
He does not believe one word of such an absurd doctrine, and only 
talks for the purpose of trying to say something eloquent, — some- 
thing that shall tingle in the ears, and awake the sleeping emotions 
of his audience. Down he sits, and straightway the moderator calls 
on brother H. to tell 7iis experience. Brother H. rises, and, having 
a spice of satire in him, says, " As for myself, I know that I am 
less virtuous than it is possible to be. I have nothing to say con- 
cerning my soul or its conditions ; but I feel assured that every 
word uttered in regard to himself by brother G. is true, — every 
word of it!'* "Why you miserable He-better, I'm a better man 



212 after death; 

than you any day ! " thinks, if not exclaims, brother G., in high 
dudgeon, at the idea of being supposed to believe for a single in- 
stant the unreasonable things whereof he had, but a moment since, 
delivered himself. It is utterly impossible that he should believe 
it. Mis first speech was unnatural, and its substance false and 
hollow ; his second one was spoken from the heart, and was in all 
respects a normal exhibition of human nature. 

The advocates of the fallacy are so many brother G.s ; they 
sail in the same boat, and when weighed in the same balances, 
tested by their own doctrines, will, to a man, be found wanting, 
and practically refute their own theory. That very odd sort of 
philosophers, who claim to be optimists, and believe that " what- 
ever is, is right," who " recognize neither merit nor demerit in 
souls, have no fear of evil, devils, men, God, or angels," and who 
use words to so little purpose, cannot for an instant stand the fire 
of honest, candid criticism. Cheat one of them out of a dollar ; 
traduce his character ; call his wife a harlot, and his children bas- 
tards ; break his heart by all sorts of ill-usage ; and then ask him 
if it is all right ; and he will admit it to be so, — if I may use an 
expressive vulgarism, — over the left. If he replies, "It is all 
right that those things should be done ; but it is also right that I 
defend myself and make you suffer all I possibly can," then set 
him down as so far non compos, for green and purple cannot be 
the same color ; a valley and mountain cannot be the same. Such 
a man is bent on riding his hobby. Like Ephraim, he is bound to 
his idols, and the more he is let alone, the better for all con- 
cerned. \ 

Logic is worth something in the affairs of the sublunaiy world. 
By its aid we determine truth, and are enabled to detect error ; 
and whosoever ignores its canons, not only usurps the title of phi- 
losopher, but evinces a woful want of common sense beside. 

" God made all things ; God is perfect ; he never makes mis- 
takes ; ergo, ' whatever is, is right,' proper, — just what it should 
be, else God is a delusion, and Nature a blank lie." Such is a 
fair specimen of the looseness with which these modern optimists 
reason. One would think they were afflicted with something 
denser than mere intellectual obtuseness, else they could not fail to 
detect the glaring absurdities hidden away in the above ridiculous 
proposition. Entrenched behind that rampart, they imagine their 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 213 

fortress to be impregnable ; when if they would inspect it a little 
closer, the seeming adamant would prove to be even more flimsy 
than brown paper. Let us see : The advocates of the doctrine 
now being anatomized, pretend to believe most devoutly in the 
great " principles of progression." Now if these last do really 
exist, then their new ism is a falsehood. "Why? How? Because 
the very fact that all things — man and his institutions included 
— have, during all past time, been ceaselessly advancing from the 
imperfect toward a higher and completer state, — have been, and 
still are, steadily going ahead from bad to better, and from better 
to best, — proves irrefutably that God never made a perfect thing, 
never created perfect conditions, but only planted perfectibility 
in all that he has made. Of course, then, if this be so, — and all 
things abundantly prove it, — whatever is cannot be right ; but all 
things are steadily moving in that direction. 

According to some people, there must be a period in a man's 
affairs, wherein it will be all just, and correct, and proper, for him 
to either sit calmly while some one insulates Ids head from 
his shoulders, or for him to perform the same operation on 
another person. There must be a time wherein it is all right and 
proper, and very fine for him, to run off with his neighbor's wife, 
or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is his. It will be all right 
for him to seduce his friend's daughter, debauch the morals of his 
son, and to do other delectable things of the same general ilk, — 
since " there's a time for all things." 

Now I broadly assert that whosoever affirms that there ever 
was, is at present, or ever will be, a time wherein murder — grim, 
gaunt, spectral, red-handed, bloody-mouthed murder — is all right, 
is either a maniac or a fool ! And yet the oblique, if not the 
direct effect of the promulgation of the sophism cannot but be the 
positive encouragement of that and all the other deep villanies 
God's earth ever groaned under, or God's angels ever witnessed 
and wept over. 

" Oh, these things are all right to the conditions that gave birth 
to the acts you deprecate," replies the optimist, to which I rejoin, 
Sir, or madam, are these conditions right? Let us probe the mat- 
ter a little deeper. You are a merchant ; I enter your store to buy 
some cloth. We differ as to the price. I am an honest woman, 
let it be supposed ; and you think to lure me from virtue's path ; 



214 AFTEK death; 

and instead of conversing about calico, you talk about love and 
passion, iny red, rosy cheeks, plump figure, sparkling eye, and a 
deal more in the same direction. Is this all right? Well, I go 
home, and, somehow or other, my husband finds it out, and, as a 
recompense for your gallantry, breaks nearly every bone in your 
body ; and, in laying you on a sick-bed for a year or so, not only 
ruins your business, and reduces your wife and children to beg- 
gary, but also blasts your prospects for life. Is this all right ? 
Again : Suppose that I am a man ; that I have a quarrel with 
you ; that, tempted sorely, urged on by a momentary but ungov- 
ernable rage, I deal you a blow which sends you across the sea of 
time to the shores of eternity in less than five minutes. Is that 
as it should have been? Come, sir optimist, speak out! Now 
that stroke of my fist may have forever decided the question 
whether you are thereafter to be an inhabitant of heaven, or a 
denizen of hades. Do not fail to take this consideration into the 
account. 

Of course I am arrested, jailed, tried, convicted by a deliber- 
ating jury, of a deliberate homicide, for which I must be delib- 
erately choked, — gaspingly, horribly choked to death ! Your 
business was settled in ten seconds ; mine takes as many months ; 
and, within a day or two of the final act, my ears are regaled with 
the delicious music of the saws and hammers, busily plied in con- 
structing the gay little platform from whence I am to step into, — 
ah, God ! what may I not step into from that platform, if common 
theology be true ? 

During the delightful season of my waiting, my poor soul is 
prayed to, for, with, and at. I am well fed, it is true, during the 
intervening days, weeks, and months, but I can't grow fat ; my 
digestion is exceedingly poor, and I cannot eat for thinking. Ah, 
it is a terrible thing to think, under certain circumstances, yet it 
is our doom ; and in compelling man to think, God created man's 
heaven or his hell. Well, the day has come at last, — a gala day 
it is, too ; for don't you see the soldiers are out, in all their feath- 
ers and finery ? Certes ! it is a gala day, — these hanging times ! 
One would think the most fitting colors to be worn on such occa- 
sions should be black, — black as the heron's plume, — black as 
night ! 

'Tis a deed of darkness to be done ; 
Put out the lights, — conceal the sun I 



OB, DISBODIED MAN. 215 

There stands the monument of the civilization of the nineteenth 
century, — a gibbet. Up, up its steps I walk, — painfully walk, 
— for my arms are tied behind me. True, I am supported b}^ a 
man of God on one side, and a sheriff on the other ; one to sign my 
passport to the other world, the other to see me safely on the 
voyage ; but the consciousness of these things makes it very pain- 
ful walking up these sixteen steps. At last we reach the platform, 
and I take a look upward, — one last lingering look at the bright 
blue heaven above me ; but instead of it, my bulging eye-balls 
fairly crack with agony as my sight rests upon the cross-beam, to the 
centre of which depends a short chain with one large link. I know 
that the link is for the hook attached to one end of a rope ; the 
noose at the other end is for my neck! Ah, God, have mercy on 
my soul! " Time's up!" saj^s the Christian sheriff, "you must 
prepare to — die!" The military, the policemen, the "invited 
guests," and holders of tickets to the hempen opera, catch his 
words, and a nameless thrill pervades the mass, every one of 
whom stands there to receive a lesson in humanity, justice, mercy, 
and Christianity ! And now the rope is adjusted, the signal 
given ; there is a sudden chug, — strange colors float before my 
eyes, and stranger sounds salute my hearing sense, — soft, low, 
sweet, dulcet sounds, — it may be the requiem for the dead which 
God's angels sing ! — I am dead ! My soul has been sent upon 
its long journey at the end of a yard of rope, and my body — poor, 
sinful body — is dangling there to damn the age which sanctions 
the deed, — dangles there a sickening sight, to sear the memories 
of the little host who had gone out there to see a man die, — to 
see me strangled ! 

Of course, all these things are right, — are they? — all just what 
God intended when he made the worlds, — are they ? Nonsense ! 
But this is not all. Next day the story of my strangling is most 
minutely told in all the papers. The horripillant feast is forced 
upon scores of thousands, who read it from the fascination of hor- 
ror. Out of all this mass of readers, some three or four, who are 
life-weary, reading how " very easily" the culprit died, go straight- 
way and hang themselves, as the most expeditious and pleasant 
way to shuffle off their miseries. We are not to the end even yet ; 
for my wife dies of a broken heart, and my children are very fre- 
quently and benevolently told that their father once upon a time 



216 AFTER death; 

danced a hornpipe upon the empty air ; until at last the taunts and 
jibes and jeers upset their reason ; they run stark staring mad ; 
one commits suicide, and the other ends her days in the mad-house. 
7s all this right? Oh, but we are dealing with a glorious doctrine, 
most assuredly ! 

Have we reached the end of the disastrous results springing from 
the popular interpretation and acceptance of the All-Right doc- 
trine? Verily, nay ! For the terrible act, the slaying of a man in 
my anger, may have doomed me to an awful punishment in the 
world bej'ond, if Christian theology should happen to be true, — 
which it isn't! It may be, that by that act of slaying I may have 
incurred a penalty not be satisfied when ages of agony shall have 
elapsed ; and by that one single deed every facult}^ of my being 
may have been transformed into an instrument of torture. Man- 
kind must think ; and so long as my soul is capable of thinking, 
the memory of my awful deed must cling to me, and I be doomed 
to see the fearful drama, myself the chief tragedian, constantly 
being re-enacted before the mind's eye, until, if ever, it may please 
the King of kings to bid my torment cease. It may be that my 
guilty soul shall be compelled to wander through all the eternal 
ages yet to be, haunted by that terrible remembrance, and lashed 
to agony by the inexorable whip of remorse, — the racking miseries 
of a guilty conscience, — than which, no greater hell can be well 
conceived ! The deed was mine, and I must suffer the dreadful 
penalty ; there can be no evasion, no escape ; for a man cannot 
commit suicide in eternit} r , — cannot run away from himself ! Yet 
this murder, this execution, and all the dire consequences that 
follow in its train, is all right ! May God have mercy on us, and 
forbid it for his own sake ! 

At this point we are met with something after this style by the 
would-be optimists : " In the light of great general principles, 
everything must be as it should. From the Infinite's stand-point 
whatever is, cannot but be a right." To which I rejoin : How do 
you know? You are not the Infinite ; and what can you know of 
the views he entertains of man and his actions, save that, being 
good himself, he loves to see his creatures so? 

No one will, or, being sensible, can dispute the existence of cer- 
tain immutable or fixed principles, which govern all things in 
God's material universe ; and, so far as dead matter and the un- 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 217 

reasoning brutes are concerned, scarce a person can be found silly 
enough to deny that whatever is, is right. But it so happens that 
man belongs to neither of these categories, — is not a citizen of 
either of these dominions ; on the contrary, he pertains to a higher 
realm altogether than those to which trees, stones, dogs, horses, 
sheep, goats, and oxen pertain, and wherein they begin and end 
their being ; yet the doctrine in question places man and all else 
in the same category. 

The same things cannot be predicated of man that are justly so 
of animals. People have liberty to choose and decide ; trees and 
brutes do not. Human beings have a sense of fitness, fairness, 
and penalty ; but I have never } r et seen a conscientious tree, nor 
a dog or tiger suffering under the pangs of remorse. How hap- 
pens it, if "it is all right " that we cannot elevate robbery and 
wrong to the dignity of the fine arts ? How is it that he who de- 
bauches his soul, or the souls and bodies of others, cannot sleep 
quiet o'nights? Why will the thing called conscience be forever 
raising up the ghosts of evil deeds, to haunt the doer till the 
death ? 

Gentlemen and ladies of the All-Right school, you have missed 
it this time ; for not only the moral and religious sentiments of 
the age are against you, but it requires but a single effort of 
reason, to arouse the common sense of all the world to arms against 
the sophistry. Nor do I care how closely you wrap yourself in 
this new blanket, it is impossible for you to evade the law of your 
own minds, or escape the inflictions of conscience whenever that 
law is broken ; and this consideration and fact tells against you 
with immense force and power. 

" Oh," replies the All-Right philosopher, " it is evident that you 
are a Pharisee, — one of the self-righteous ones, who rub their 
hands and thank God that they are not like other people ! " Well, 
I reply, if they are better, why, I say, " Good for the Pharisees ! " 
that's all. But if you go on proclaiming your ism, you will be 
quite Sad-you-see, before long, provided that truth and logic are of 
more vital stamina than their opposites ; besides which, I confess 
to a liking and respect toward him or her, who, in full view of the 
deep rascality everywhere abounding in scores and hundreds of 
our human kinsfolk, can inwardly, truly, fully feel that himself or 
herself is really righteous, and in the heart-deeps of being, and in 
28 



218 AFTER DEATH ; 

a strong conviction of personal probity, thank God they are not 
like certain other people. Good for the Pharisees ! I saj^ again, 
provided they be of the sort just sketched. 

. At this, the All-Right person feels gleeful, and says, " Ah, now 
I have 3'ou, for you can't help admitting that what you have just 
said is all right ! " 

Not so fast, friend. I do not for an instant admit that the fear- 
ful contrasts among men, which alone can provoke such exclama- 
tions, — without which no such expressions could ever be made, — 
are at all right. Every man and woman should be good and true, 
just and righteous, and not merely a few of earth's children. 

The age of virtuous talk is passing away; the age of virtuous 
action, we humbly trust, is drawing near. The genuine test of a 
philanthropist's honesty lies in the performance of good deeds, — 
not in contenting himself with telling people it is all right, when 
he knows, if he will but look about him, that much that is, is 
wrong. The only credentials current in the courts of heaven are 
the good deeds done while in the body ; nor will any amount of 
sophistical twisting impose upon the recording angel who sits 
within the gates of glory. Heaven has its customs law, nor will 
any contraband articles be allowed to enter, much less a soul whose 
best days have been spent in deluding the multitude unto the 
insane belief that every crime in the calendar was all right. 
There, a man must appear to be what he really is. The law of 
distinctness is imperative. 

Soul is an eternal asbestos ; it cannot be consumed, but is 
purified by fire ; and so, whoever would have the soul a pleasant 
fount of joy in the worlds above, must not lay up bad memories of 
bad deeds, but forever steer clear of the rocks whereon it is certain 
to strike if the " All Right " be the beacon or the chart. 

Education has much to do in man and woman's final making up. 
There is a deal of good in every soul, — whole mountains and rivers 
thereof; but there is also much that may be perverted, — many a 
little brooklet of very bitter water. In human education many of 
these have been unduly increased, till now they threaten to over- 
flow the whole estate. Let us dam them up, cut off the supply, 
and see to it that these brooklets — the passions and bad tendencies 
— be not caused to flourish by such culture as the oft-quoted max- 
ims would encourage. 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 219 

The age of extremes of one sort — now happily sliding away — 
bids fair to be succeeded by another kind, unless good men and 
earnest women seek to check it ere too strongly grown and mind- 
entrenched. 

We stand in the door of the dawn, fully persuaded that the sun 
now rising will, ere long, gladden the hearts and homes of men. 
We have had a surfeit of philosophy, and now need a little common 
sense. The fact that the race can see the first gleams of a better 
day constitutes no just reason why any man or woman should as- 
sume an attitude of self-complacency and proclaim alike to those 
who can, and those who cannot, think clearly, that all the sin and 
sorrow, vice and misery, now causing the very land to groan 
beneath the heavy load, is all right ; because to do so is to pro- 
claim — a lie ! and never was nor can be otherwise. It will not 
do to shift the responsibility of all existing evils from ourselves to 
the Creator. God is no more responsible for your deeds or mine 
than we are for those of our descendants forty centuries hence. 
Were it otherwise, then creation is a stupendous farce, and God 
becomes our inveterate enemy, instead of being, what I believe 
him, — our best and most benignant friend. The Infinite One 
created, made, fashioned, and decreed the progression and proces- 
sion of all things. But his work is not yet done — the mighty 
task is not yet completed ; for he is, at this day, still working up 
the worlds toward the standard himself can only know. He is 
still present with and over us, in his divine Fatherhood and Prov- 
idence ; he still smiles when we do his will, — still grieves, as of 
yore, at all that is bad or brutal, unseemly, unmanly, unwomanly, 
and wrong. 

No, no ; it will not do to charge God with our shortcomings, 
and none but an arrant coward would seek to crawl away from the 
presence of the music himself has evoked ! Every true philanthro- 
pist, — and these, be it known, are not such as talk temperance, 
and fatten on the worm of the still ; are not such as publicly 
mourn over harlotry, and let houses for its prosecution ; are not 
such as say, " It is all right," and by their daily actions give them- 
selves the lie direct ; are not such as commiserated poor Pompey, 
and voted him back to the gyves ; are not such as go into holy 
hysterics once a year, and from gayly thronged platforms proclaim 
the negro a man and a brother, and next day " damn his black pic- 



220 AFTER DEATH ; 

ture " because he offers love to their daughters, or attempts to sit 
down at the same table, — merely by way of testing their honesty, 
and perpetrating a " black joke " at the same time ; not the strong- 
minded ones who are so rampant for women's rights, public ap- 
plause, oratory, and fanaticism, that they must needs enlist for life 
in a warfare against men, — not one of whom they ever made happy 
for a single hour ; not j T our lady of harsh voice and vinegar soul, 
who, in the business of world-saving, " goes it with a rush," to 
the utter neglect of the fireside, the husband, the baby, and the 
dear, sweet home ; not the Spiritualist, who talks exceedingly 
spiritual, and acts as if the body and its gratifications were the 
only things worth while attending to ; not the Harmon ialist, whose 
harmony of life, deed, and influence partakes of the nature of filing 
saws and discordant penny trumpets ; not of this sort is the true 
philanthropist ; but rather he (or she) who in a quiet way does all 
the good possible, and sticks to it, — every such an one, I repeat, 
realizes that the world needs bettering ; and, for that reason, feels 
called upon to encourage much less " talkee, talkee," and much 
more action, action, action, with strong arm, steady purpose, and 
in the right direction. Evils — tremendous, soul-dwarfing, spirit- 
subjugating evils — such as now afflict the world, can never be 
talked down ; they must be written, worked, lived, and fought 
down ; and the true business of every man and woman who wishes 
well to the world, is to be up and doing, and keep doing all the 
while. Will the evils whereof we so justly complain — prostitu- 
tion, for instance — disappear if we merely stand idly looking on, 
proclaiming that it is all right, and voting ourselves philosophers 
when we approach much nearer being fools? He or she who thinks 
so is neither man nor woman, but only a sort of " What is it?" 
very interesting to look at and listen to, but a "What is it?" 
nevertheless. 

See ! yonder goes a woman ; she is fallen, degraded, lost to 
every sense of decency or shame. Her present mission is to sell 
herself for so much ready coin to the first human brute who will 
purchase her. Does she do this fearful sin for the pure love of 
sinning? No! she does it that she may hand over the jingling 
deity to the baker, in exchange for bread ! bread, sir, to keep her 
soul within her body yet a little while, and to keep that body 
above the ground for just a little longer. She is coarse and un- 



OR, DI8BODIED MAN. , 221 

tidy, uses bad. language, and is low ; but still, she is a Avoman, like 
your mother and like mine, and like them, too, she was once pure 
and sweet, and beautiful and good. But ah, Christ ! how fallen, 
oh, how fallen ! Yes, she was once like them ; God grant that they 
may never be like her. Is she fulfilling her proper destiny ? Virtue is 
natural ; vice is acquired. Bias toward either is hereditary. 
Circumstance governs the fate of many unfortunates like that 
woman ; she, nor j t ou, nor I, can control circumstance alone, but 
we can join the army of goodness, before which bad circumstance 
must fly, and better take its place. Come, let's do it. Let us see 
how many of such fallen ones we can save in a year, — this very 
identical current year. I'll try ! Won't you? 

The woman, that wretched sister ! — is she and her actions all 
right? Nonsense ! Blasphemy to assert it ! She is sliding down 
the hill of ruin, and will reach the fatal bottom, unless we who 
can, shall, and will, put forth the effort to redeem and save her. 
She, poor thing! and there are millions of such, — more's the pity 
and the shame to those who have made her and them what we see, 
— she is marring the beauty of her deathless soul ; is killing by 
inches the body she wears ; is defacing the priceless tablets of her 
immortal being ; and whoever says all this is right is a fit subject 
for the lunatic hospital. And yet, there are those who do make this 
preposterous assertion. Now hundreds, ay, thousands, there be, 
who do not scruple to brand that woman — the unhappy represen- 
tative of an entire class — with all sorts of infamous and oppro- 
brious epithets, instead of, as they ought, saving and doing all 
they can to reclaim and save her. They rack the language for 
harsh names to apply to her, until the poor creature, feeling — 
most bitterly feeling — that no kind heart throbs for her, no ten- 
derness is, or ever will be, vouchsafed ; that she must remain a 
victim to the spirit of human cruelty, or what is, if possible, still 
worse, — mock charity; feeling all this, and that she must con- 
tinue to grope her way all alone through the world, and then drop 
prematurely and uncared for into the cold, damp grave, from a 
still colder world, and, all unprepared, crawl up to the Judgment- 
Seat she has been taught to believe in ; feeling all this, and more, 
it is no great marvel that her heart grows hard, and her once pure 
soul now totters on the very brink of desperation, while she eats, 
drinks, and sleeps, the food, and drink, and slumber, of vice and 



222 AFTER death; 

infamy, day by day, and week after week. Look ! there she has 
ajccosted a man upon the sidewalk, but scarce has a single word 
passed, ere one of the potent guardians or custodians of the pub- 
lic morals — an individual in blue coat, brass buttons, and large 
authority, who has just tossed off a glass of the " good Rhein 
wein, " the generous proffer of a burly ruffian who can afford to 
pay for the protection of his magnificent looking-glasses and mar- 
ble counters, behind which he stands to deal out liquid ruin at so 
much the glass — catches sight of the Cyprian plying her dreadful 
trade. She, he knows, cannot pay, and so he grows indignantly 
scrupulous, gruffly tells her to move on, and accelerates her move- 
ments with a round oath or two, and a not very gentle push. 
She mutely obeys, because resistance is out of the question, be- 
sides which, she knows that he carries a legally authorized blud- 
geon in his pocket, and that he would not hesitate to use it on the 
slightest pretext, either upon herself or any one who should ex- 
postulate or counsel gentler measures ; a very dirty bludgeon it is, 
too ; still he tries to keep it clean, and once in a while washes it 
of the blood spots, and cleans it of the matted hair, — human 
hair, — from the heads of the last half-dozen drunken sots whom 
he found asleep upon the sidewalks, and took such Christian means 
to arouse from their airy slumbers. But why should we find 
fault? Isn't he a regular policeman? Well, be quiet, then, and 
don't complain. What better can you expect? Is it at all rea- 
sonable to demand that an officer should have plenty of muscle, 
and a heart at the same time ? Nonsense ! Now I ask if all the 
parts or any of this picture are right ? and I answer No ! and the 
utterance is both deep and full ; so deep, so loud, so full, that the 
very vaults of heaven echo back, and ring out, No ! 

No human being exists but in whom the germs of the generous 
and good, the beautiful and the true, lie ready to spring forth into 
excellent glory. We know this, and know it well. These germs 
may be in fallow ground ; still they are there, and it is your busi- 
ness and mine to so plough this fallow land that it shall cause these 
seeds to spring up and thriftily grow. What though the soil be 
hard and stony, dry and parched ; the fruit of our culture will be 
rich arid succulent, for the warming beams of God's sunlight and 
grace will perfect and ripen the produce, and it shall be immor- 
tally sweet, eternally beautiful and fragrant, forever and for aye ! 



OR, DISBODIED MAN. 223 

Reader, have you never observed the fact that even the very bad 
and vicious occasionally flash forth somewhat of the Divine, — 
sometimes gleam out the hidden glory ? Well, there's a mine of 
diamonds in every soul, and God and nature, and all human love, 
calls on you and me to bring these diamonds forth to the sunlight, 
that they may catch the radiance of heaven, and flash out their 
glories on the air and to the world, kindling up the emulation of 
virtue and excellent doing in all human souls. 

There goes that abandoned woman. Let us follow her, — this 
prostitute, this lost and ruined sister, this creature, fashioned 
after the likeness of our God, but now, alas, so supremely foul 
and wretched. She is hieing homeward! Homeward? what a 
mockery that word conveys ; yet she has what she calls a home, 
and beneath that shelter, such as it is, lies at this moment, upon 
its pallet of straw, a babe, — her child, bone of her bone, and flesh 
of her flesh. Poor infant ! truly begotten in sin and brought forth 
in iniquity ; but none the less a precious, priceless, immortal soul, 
for all that, — a soul just as dear as any for which we are told 
God's Son forsook the courts of glory, and came to earth to suffer 
and to die on the stony heights of Calvary, — a soul just as 
precious to the Infinite heart, as the best-born of ^earth, because it 
is a human soul, and his life pulses through it, as well as through 
you or me, or the holiest ones of earth or heaven ; and albeit, we 
may, and, as virtuous citizens of the great world, can but frown 
upon the guilt and folly that opened the gate by the which it 
entered into outer being ; yet nevertheless it is a soul, and as such 
has crying claims upon our love, and care, and kindliness ; for 
being here is not that blessed baby's fault, and in the coming 
judgment, if there be one, God's prosecuting angel will hold it 
accountable for its own sins, not for its mother's sorrows and mis- 
fortunes. And- even for its own sins, Sandalphon, the prayer- 
angel, will eloquently plead at the foot of the eternal throne. 

Well, she has left the highway, and turned down a narrow, 
dark, and dreadful alley, one of those horrible sinks of moral 
poison, pestilence, and perdition ; the awful and disgusting vice- 
cancers, sin-blotches, and festering pest-lanes, which are the 
eternal disgrace of all the great cities of the world ; infamous 
purlieus of miser}'', wherein gaunt Robbery moodily sits plotting 



224 AFTER DEATH; 

his villany, and pale Murder lies nursing red-handed Butchery, 
who ere long will fright the very world with horror. 

How strangely people change ! A little while ago, and that 
woman's crest was held aloft and erect, in brazen impudence and 
defiance, 'as she paced up and down the streets, a human spider, 
intent upon drawing silly human flies into her horrible web, — a 
web which they can never quit as pure, and good, and innocent in 
body and in mind, as when they entered ; for it is poison, — every 
thread and fibre of it, except the baby in the bed, — and the deadly 
odor of the Upas fills all the region round about. 

Why turns she so quickly down that lane ? Well, I will tell 
3'ou. Because the itching and the tingling of her breasts told her 
that the babe of her agony and her shame was a-hungered for the 
thin, bine milk of her bosom. And so she quits the street, for 
maternal love is much stronger than the love of gnilt or money. 
Soon the glare of the street lamp no longer shines upon her form, 
for it is lost amid the labyrinths and devious windings of that 
dark and noisome alley-way, this horrid tomb of all the human 
virtues. But her aspect has changed ; and the flaunting courte- 
san hangs her head, as she carefully and lightly threads her way 
along. The harlot's sun'has set, and the star of the Woman and 
the Mother reigns triumphant for — an "hour ! 

Up, up, up, the dark and filthy stairs she flies, for the milk-pains 
urge her on ; anon the attic is reached ; a little brass key turns in 
the lock ; a ready match is ignited ; the little lamp illumes the 
seven-by-nine den, for chamber it cannot be called ; she runs to 
the bedside, falls lovingly upon it, snatches up the prattler, 
presses it to her bosom, and " my babe, my precious babe ! " she 
cries, as the great round tears gush up from her heart, — her 
woman's heart, after all ! The little one answers with a gleeful 
chuckle, and in another moment is busily engaged in drawing 
vitality from the body of weakness, virtuous life from the paps of 
guilt ! Love, pure, dear, sweet, and precious love reigns then and 
there ; just such love as your mother felt for you, my reader, my 
sister, or my brother ; just such love in kind, and degree, as Chris- 
tians tell us prompted our God to send his only begotten, because 
most perfectly begotten Son, to earth for purposes of salvation 
and redemption ; just such love as made the meek and lowly 
Nazarene toilsomely bear his cross up the stony steeps of Cal- 



OE, DISBODIED MAN. 225 

var-j , and afterward groan and die thereon ! Surely that woman 
is not wholly lost who feels even a little love like this. 

And so we see this woman in all her sin and misery. Is it all 
right? By the God of Heaven, no; a pealing, thundering, heaven- 
rending NO ! It can never be right for a true woman, or a true man, 
to rest contented while such things be ! Society — you, sir, and 
me, — you, madam, and I, as integers thereof, must work, work, 
WORK, to bring about a better state of things. It can never be 
right to foster or in any way encourage the growth of such mon- 
strous evils, as I, who love the race much better than a party or a 
philanthropic clique, herein attempt to outline and depict. The 
modern declaimers for the doctrine " whatever is is right " could 
not have foreseen the fearful consequences likely to arise from the 
enunciation of the great sophism. I am charitable enough to 
believe they did not so foresee them. 

Nevertheless the infectious malaria has gone out upon its peace- 
destroying mission ; and doubtless there are scores of thousands 
who, failing to perceive the utter rottenness of the fallacy, felici- 
tate themselves that, being God's creatures, they can do no wrong ; 
because he is at the head of all human founts and springs of 
action, therefore everything is as it ought to be. It is quite time 
the calumny was refuted, and the people set right on this question, 
and if this endeavor in the right direction shall have, as I believe 
it will, the effect of depriving this new viper of its fangs, this 
detestable serpent of its sting, this asp of its poison, I shall not 
fail to thank God, with an overflowing heart. 

Doubtless all things in the mere material, and dumb, deaf, un- 
thinking, unconscientious, and unreflecting world are right, and 
the man or woman must be insane who would find fault, cavil at 
or dispute the truth of what, in this light, confessedly, becomes 
an axiom. 

I cannot evade the conclusion, looking at the subject from the 
stand-point of intuition and clairvoyance, that God understood his 
business well when he began the world ; and when we take this 
lofty stand to pass judgment on the " All-Eight " philosophy, we 
cannot help affirming that, beyond all cavil, the man is correct 
who affirms that " whatever is is right." 

But my endorsement of the doctrine extends not one single 
step beyond the mere physical world, its laws and action ; for 
29 



226 after death; or, disbodied man. 

when the All-Right doctrine ventures beyond that and enters the 
vast domain of custom, habit, philosophy, morals, and religion, 
then it is woefully out of place, and unworthy of even respectful 
consideration. Let us live, act, talk, and die right, — then it will 
indeed be for us and the world — All Right. 

Our life on the other side will demonstrate the truth of what 
this book contains, carp at it now who will or may. I have penned 
it at a time when it was more than doubtful if I should live to 
finish it. In the words of poor Poe : "What I have here writ- 
ten is truth, therefore it cannot die ; or if it be trodden down so 
that it die, it will rise again to the life everlasting. 

I thank God for this great living light of clairvoyance, which 
has enabled me, a man who never had two years' schooling in his 
life, to behold these eternal verities and principles. It is not a 
special gift, but a latent power in us all, and as I have stated in 
my book the whole art op clairvoyance can be attained by a 
majority of those who patiently try. 

" No curtain hides from view the spheres elysian, 
Save these poor shells of half-transparent dust, 
And all that blinds the spiritual vision 
Is pride, and hate, and lust." ■ 

As for me I shall still, while I remain on earth, devote my life 
and clairvoyance, not to the mere examination, but to the treat- 
ment and cure of those human ailments and diseases that I have 
made a specialty, and in which, by God's great favor, I have been 
the means of curing to so great an extent. 

And now, little book, go forth and work out the mission for 
which you were designed ; and may all who read you find peace and 
good, and, dying, meet your author where the weary cease from 
troubling, and the wicked are at rest. 

P. B. Randolph. 

Boston, Mass., March, 1868. 



APPENDIX. 



PART II. A. 

DISCOVERIES — THE GRAND SECRET OF LIFE. 

That soul, spirit, and body are, in this life, closely related, and 
interdependent, is a truth which, although denied by unreasoning 
zealots, is so plain and clear, under the strong light that starry 
Science has thrown upon the subject, that none but semi-idiots can 
possibly disaffirm. 

I now announce another startling truth, believing, most solemnly 
believing, as I do, that moral, social, domestic, and intellectual 
health cannot possibly exist unless the human body is also in a 
free, full, pure state of normal health likewise. I have not the 
slightest doubt but that the bodily states here affect the immortal 
soul hereafter, and that the sin against the Holy Ghost is, in its 
ulterior effects, the most terrible that man can imagine. Else- 
where I have defined it, and also announced the discovery of two 
other very important truths, namely, That nine-tenths of all the 
"Crime," "Sin," and "Iniquity" committed on the globe, and 
especially within the pale of so-called "civilization" is wholly, 
solely, and entirely the result or effect of Chemical, Electrical, and 
Magnetic conditions ; and that if those who commit them were 
under the influence of an opposite state of things, quite opposite 
results and conduct would be the rule and not the exception ! 
However this theory may be misapprehended jiow, the day is not 
far off when its golden truth will be gratefull}- acknowledged on all 
sides ; for it will be clearly seen that the same laws govern the mind 
as rule the body. Who is there that does not know that drunken- 
ess is a mere chemical condition ; that the effect of sudden ill-news 
turns one sick at the stomach ; that disappointment hardens the 

227 



228 NEW DISCOVERIES. 

liver ; that fear relaxes the bowels ; that grief unstrings the 
muscles ; and that, in fact, a hundred other purely chemical effects 
demonstrate the truth of this my new theory? 

My researches into the arcana of mental and physical disease 
have fully satisfied me that this world of ours will never be the 
delightful place it is capable of becoming, till the great chemico- 
dynamic laws are clearly understood and obeyed. At intervals 
during twenty-five years, I have practised Medicine, which I have 
again resumed, and have made nervous diseases, including in- 
sanity, and curing the habits of liquor and tobacco using, a 
specialty ; and I now make public the secret of my success in the 
treatment of such, and correlated diseases, trusting that the dis- 
closures may fall into the hands of those who are not so strongly 
bound to the old as to reject a better theory and system, and one, 
too, that has never yet failed where fairly tried. 

Should my readers, and' the vast public that I now address, be 
asked to state what they considered the most supreme bliss of 
physical life, no two answers would probably be the same ; for one 
would name this, another that, and so on through them all ; and 
the chances are that not one of them would correctly name it. 
Beyond all question the most rapturous sensation the human body 
can experience is sudden relief from pain, — an assertion amply 
confirmed by every one's experience. Freedom from pain is a 
supreme joy, perfect health the chief good, — facts not realized 
till both are gone. 

The surgeon at his dissecting table is struck ^with awe as he 
beholds the marvels of the human body, even when still and cold 
in the icy folds of Death ; but what would be his astonishment 
and awe, could he with true clairvoyant eye behold the mighty 
machine in full and active motion, — as I and many others have 
through that marvellous magnetic sight? Not for an emperor's 
diadem would I exchange the blessed knowledge thus acquired, for 
it has saved many a valuable life, and the glory is greater, and 
hereafter will be more highly prized, than that of any imperial 
butcher whose fame is builded upon rape, carnage, and fields red- 
wet with human slaughter. 

" It is all guess-work ! " said one of earth's greatest physicians, 
when speaking of his own art ; and it is certain that nearly all the 
old theories of diseases and their remedies are fast dying out, and 



THINGS WORTH KNOWING. 229 

that the era of Positive Science is already dawning on the world. 
People now begin to understand of what their bodies are com- 
posed, and to realize that the best remedies are those already 
manufactured and compounded by Nature herself; or,. in other 
words, they begin to know that any given form of disease indicates 
either the excess or absence of one or more of the elements that go 
to make up the body, and that means must be used to vacate the 
excess, or to supply the deficiency, which being done, and chemi- 
cal harmony and electric and magnetic equilibrium being restored, 
physical, mental, and moral health follow, must follow, with math- 
ematical certaiuty and precision. These physical remedies of Na- 
ture are heat, water, light, exercise, sleep, food, and fresh air, — 
the last being greatest, seeing that it is the most direct vehicle of 
life itself. 

Men, and women too, have existed for long years immured in vile 
dungeons, deprived of all light ; for no blessed sun-ray ever reached 
their blank abodes. These same victims, and millions more, existed 
and exist, without exercise, and with but poor food, and a worse 
supply of water. Caravans on the desert, and sailors becalmed 
or wrecked, have gone even twenty days without water, and yet 
survived to tell the dreadful tale of their fearful agonies when thus 
deprived. We are all familiar with the records of the long periods of 
forced abstinence from food, not a few instances having reached the 
enormous period of thirty consecutive days ; nor need I scarce men- 
tion the wonderful resisting power of the human body against the 
extremes of both heat and cold, but especially the former. In some 
parts of India, Australia, and Africa, men thrive under a temper- 
ature within twenty-five degrees of that of boiling water ; while here, 
right in our midst, thousands of fools flock to see others of the same 
species handle bars of hot iron, wash their hands in molten lead, 
walk barefoot on red-hot plates, and enter ovens with raw meat, 
abiding therein till said flesh is thoroughly done. Pity some of 
these foolhardy people couldn't find some safer way to earn a 
livelihood than by thus sportively trifling with sacred human life ! 

In reference to sleep, how many of my readers have spent 
sleepless nights for weeks together, when, by nervous irritability, 
trouble, or illness, it has been utterly impossible to snatch a mo- 
ment's respite from the terrible unrest ! How often the poor, pale, 
sad-hearted mother, as she leans and lingers over the sick-bed of 



230 NEW DISCOVERIES. 

her fever-stricken darling, finds sleep a stranger to her eyelids, 
and a fearfully intense wakefulness baffle all her attempts to catch 
even one brief half-hour's slumber and repose ! How often the 
" business man," — he who breathes the atmosphere of money-bags, 
lives wholly on 'Change, and whose sweetest melody is the music 
of jingling dollars, — the man who reads with feverish anxiety the 
daily commercial news, and watches with deep interest the fluctu- 
ation of stocks" and commodities in the half-glutted marts of the 
" civilized" world, as he bends in slavish worship at the shrine of 
the golden god, — how often, I repeat, do men like him, — and 
they are very plentiful in these dismal days, — go day after day, 
for months and years, with scarce a night's sound sleep ! Thus it 
is plain that mankind can, and often does, support existence, 
when deprived of food, raiment, light, heat, exercise, water, sleep, 
and fresh air. 

Atmospheric air is a compound, one-third of which is oxygen ; 
and this oxygen contains the principle of animal life within the 
minute globules whereof it is formed. Now, if there be an excess 
of this life-principle in a given volume of oxygen, whoever breathes 
it burns up, as it were, and becomes unfitted for normal living. 
If in the air we breathe there be less than a due amount of oxygen, 
containing the vital principle, whatever breathes it, slowly but 
surely dies. This discovery — that oxy gen is more than a common 
gas ; that it is the vehicle of the vital principle, hence is itself a 
principle — is a most important one to the world, and especially 
the scientific portion thereof. If oxygen were to be withdrawn 
from the air for one short five minutes, everj^ living thing — man 
and plant, animal and insect, reptile and fish, bird and worm — 
would perish instantaneously, and the globe we inhabit be turned 
into one vast festering graveyard. Not a vestige of any kind of 
life would remain to gladden the vision of an angel, should one of 
God's messengers chance to wing his flight that way. All terres- 
trial things would have reached a crisis ; creation's wheels and 
pinions be effectually clogged ; life itself go out in never-ending 
darkness, and gaunt, dreary chaos ascend the throne of the mun- 
dane world, never again to be displaced ! 

The immense importance of this principle may be seen in the 
case of those who delve for lucre in the shape of coal, tin, etc., 
etc., hundreds of feet beneath earth's surface ; for these people 



THINGS WOETH KNOWING. 231 

manage to live with a very limited supply of oxygen and the vital 
principle as inhalants, making amends for it by eating highly 
phosphoric and oxygenic food ; but the very instant that the gas- 
eous exhalations, frequently generated in such places, reach a 
point of volume, bulk, or amount, sufficient to absorb or neutralize 
the oxygen, as is liable to occur from the combination forming 
new compounds in those dark abodes, that instant, grim Death, 
mounted on the terrible choke-damp, — as the accumulation of foal 
air is called, — rides forth to annihilate and exterminate every 
moving, living being there ! 

Again : It may happen that oxygen, which is the principle of 
flame, accumulates too fast, gathers in too great volume, and 
unites with other inflammable gases. In such a case, woe be to 
that mine and its hundreds of human occupants, — if by accident 
or carelessness the least fiery spark touches that combustible air, 
— for an explosion louder than the roar of a hundred guns upon 
a battle-field takes place ; one vast sheet of red-hot flame leaps 
forth to shatter, blast, and destroy, and in one moment the work 
of years is undone ; the mine crushed in, and no living being es- 
capes to tell the dreadful story of the awful and sudden doom. 

If the entire oxygen of the air should take fire, as it might by a 
very-slight increase of its volume, the entire globe would burn like 
a cotton-field on fire, and, the entire surface of the earth be changed 
into solid glass within an hour ! 

And yet this terrible agent is man's best and truest friend. It 
is a splendid nurse, and a better physician never yet existed, and 
never will. 

This great truth long since forced itself upon the popular mind ; 
but no sooner were the people familiar with the name of oxygen, 
than empirical toadstools, in the shape of unprincipled quacks, 
sprung up all over the land, persuading sick people that they 
would speedily get well by breathing what they had the impudence 
to call " vitalized air," as if God himself had not sufficiently 
vitalized the great aerial ocean in which the world is cushioned ; or 
that health and power would come again by inhaling " oxygenized 
air," — as if it were possible to add one particle of oxygen to the 
air we breathe more than God placed there originally. 

A couple of these harpies once partially convinced me that they 
really effected cures by administering what they called oxygenized 



232 NEW DISCOVERIES. 

air, and, liking the theory, I accepted it, and even wrote two or 
three articles in its favor. But when I looked into the matter and 
found the theory false, — having been led" thereto by an article 
written by the ablest chemist in America, Dr. Nichols, of Boston, — 
I decided that whoever was so unwise as to inhale their stuff was 
in danger of sudden death, while whoever should breathe pure 
oxygen would as certainly burn up inside, as if he or she drank 
pure alcohol and kept it up. 

There is but one way in which the inhalation of oxygen can do 
any good whatever to a person, sick or well, and that is to breathe 
it just as God intended it should be, — in the sun-warmed, open 
air! 

I have elsewhere said that no one can be good or virtuous in 
soiled linen. I strengthen it with — nor unless the lungs be well 
inflated ! 

Look at the operation of this principle in the case of a man 
who is pent up' in an old dingy office three-fifths of every day. 
He cannot enjoy life. Why? Because his lungs are leathery 
and collapsed, never filled with aught save close, dusty, foul, 
over-breathed, stove-heated air. The man is, though ignorant of 
the fact, dying by inches, because his blood and other fluids are 
loaded down with the foul exhalations which he draws into his sys- 
tem while breathing his own breath over and over again, as he 
does at least five thousand times a day ; and at every breath he 
puts a nail in his own coffin, and drives it home by every half- 
chewed meal he eats. Now, let that man smell the heart of an 
oak log two feet thick every morning, — after he shall daily cut 
his way to it with a dull axe, and in one month his ills will vanish 
under this prescription of " oxygenized air ; " his weight will have 
increased twenty pounds ; for the labor will have made him puff 
and blow, and his lungs, taking advantage of that puffing and 
blowing, will have luxuriated in their oxygenic treat. Why? 
Because they impart it and its contained vitality to the blood, and 
away that goes, health-charged, through every artery of the body, 
cleaning out the passages as it flies along, 'leaving a little health 
here and a little there, until, in a few months, the entire man is re- 
newed and made over from head to heel. His color comes again ; 
his haggardness has gone ; he is full of life, vivacity, and fun ; 
pokes your ribs as he retails, with flashing eye and extreme unc- 



THINGS WORTH KNOWING. 233 

tion, the last new practical joke he plaj^ed. He eats three times 
his usual quantum of roast beef and plum-pudding ; plays at leap- 
frog with his boys in the parlor, to the utter bewilderment of all 
the rest of the family ; and when his wife expostulates, embraces 
and kisses her with a fervor that reminds her of the early years, 
— lang syne ; laughs at dyspepsia ; bids the mully-grubs good- 
by ; dismisses his doctor ; cracks a mot at the expense of the 
cemetery man ; outwits his peers on 'change ; dances the polka 
with his head-clerk, to the can-can tune of Offenbach's " Duchess 
of Gerolstein;" enjoys life with a rush, generally, and swears he 
cannot die for laughing ! So much for oxygen, — inhaled as it 
only ought to be, — naturally. 

Now, look at these other pictures : One is the babe of parents, 
fast, fond, and foolish, as ever drew breath, hence their child's first 
practical lesson is to have a holy horror of fresh air, sunshine, — 
not a hand's breadth of which ever falls on its pretty face lest it 
get tanned, and some fool declare its grandfather must have been 
an American citizen of African descent, — and cold water. Out 
on such folly ! The poor child is gasping for God's free air ; and 
its pale lips and sunken blue eyes, white, delicate, semi-lucent 
skin, narrow chest, and cramped soul and body, are so many elo- 
quent protests against baby-tide, and pleadings for more light, 
air, life ; more backing against the croup, measles, scarletina, fe- 
vers, worms, wasting, weazenness, and precocity, to which all baby 
life is exposed, and which it must meet, conquer, or die itself. 

Instead of exercising common sense, the child is padded on the 
outside, and stuffed and crammed with sweets, cakes, pies, candies, 
and a host of other abominations, all of which diminish its chances 
for health, and tend directly to ripen it prematurely, so that at ten 
years of age, if it lives that long, it is perfectly well posted in cer- 
tain baleful school habits, which I have elsewhere stated is the 
same that in Scripture is meant by the " sin against the Holy 
Ghost." In plain words, I refer to self-pollution. 

Look now at another baby, the child of yonder Irish woman, 
clad, it is true, in coarse raiment ; whose poverty won't afford 
pies or such trash, but only the coarsest kind of food, which is, 
however, most deliciously seasoned with that richest of all condi- 
ments, — hunger. But poor as she undoubtedly is in this world's 
goods, she is richer than a queen in real wealth ; for she is con- 
30 



234 NEW DISCOVERIES. 

tented with her lot, by reason of robust health, itself the result of 
labor, and supremely blest and happy in her glorious but uproari- 
ous family of children, — nine young ones and two at the breast, 

— regular loud-lunged roysterers are most of them, the terror of 
squirrels, birds' nests, and stray dogs, but at the same time the 
hope and pride of Young America, — of Milesian lineage, — chaps 
who will one day give a good account of themselves, if ever the 
foreign foe invades the soil of this fair land of ours S Girls that 
are girls in every sense, with something tangible rather than 
spring-steel or cotton-paddible to boast of ! — cherry-lipped, rosy- 
cheeked, plump, and fair, destined to family honors by and by, 
prouder than a queen upon her jewelled throne. No disease lurks 
there ; no consumptive lungs under those breast-bones, and no 
terrible catalogue of aches, pains, bad teeth, and worse breath ; no 
cramps and qualms and female diseases there, because the house 
they live in is built on beef and potatoes, instead of hot drinks 
and fashionable flummery. 

Now, it will be just as difficult for the children of that poor 
woman to fall into the popular train of vices characterizing too 
many American youth, as it will be easy for the children of the 
first couple to be victimized before they reach their fifteenth year. 
The coarser type will outlive the more delicate, and when all is 
over will have been of more real service to the world. 

"How the candle flickers, Nellie! how the candle flickers!" 
said a dying man to his darling wife, the idol of his heart, the be- 
loved of his soul, the pure, the true, the beautiful Nellie, wife of 
his soul. " How the caudle flickers, darling ! put it out, — and 

— go to — bed, weenie. I shall sleep well — to-night — and 
awaken — in the — morning ! Good-night, darling ! How the 
candle flickers ! " 

It was not the candle that flickered, it was his lamp of life 
burned to the socket ; for death was veiling his eyes from the 
world, — at fifty years of age, — mid-life, when he should have 
been in his prime. 

Why was he dying? Why did life's candle flicker ere half- 
burnt out ? Because his had been a life of thought. To embel- 
lish immortal pages he had toiled, almost ceaselessly, and wholly 
unrequited, during long years, and that, too, in gaunt poverty, 
while those about him whom bis brain-toil had enriched and made 



THINGS WORTH KNOWING. 235 

insolent, fared sumptuousty every day, while he was immured in a 
garret, painfully laboring for an ungrateful world, — which usually 
crushes a man down, and stamps upon him for falling ! As fell 
that man, so have thousands of the world's true heroes and geni 
fallen. But he and they are not blameless. His fault was 
neglect of his lungs and general health while recuperative energy 
yet remained ; and then came colds, coughs, nervous debility, 
until at last he gave the signal of departure for the summer shores 
of Aidenn in the sad, sad words that fell like leaden rain on the 
heart of her who loved him so tenderly and well. 

"The candle flickers, Nellie. I — shall — sleep — well! Go 
to — bed — weenie. I shall awaken, darling, — I shall awaken in 
the " — vast eternity ! 

Died for want of an ordinary precaution, and because those 
who make disease a professional study did not, could not, com- 
prehend his case. When, oh, when will people of brains learn to 
abide by Charles Reade's advice, " Genius, genius, take care of 
your carcass"? 

This simile of a flickering candle is a true one, for the very in- 
stant you cut off the supply of carbon and oxygen, out it goes. 
Supply what it wants, and instantly it regains all its power and 
brightness. Just so it is with our bodies. When sick they do 
not require a heroic system of treatment, but simply a clear under- 
standing of what elements are in excess or exhaustion, and a 
scientific procedure on that basis will not fail to brighten up many 
a human candle that otherwise would speedily go out forever, so 
far as this life is concerned. 

Of course it is seen from this that the system I claim to have 
discovered, and which I apply in my practice, and am here trying 
to impart to others, aims to entirely revolutionize the medical 
practice of Christendom ; and that it will do so is just as certain as 
that truth is of more vital stamina than error ; and I gratefully 
appreciate the reception of my theory by so large a number of in- 
telligent and prominent physicians. 

Tliat system has never yet failed in a single instance. It is, 
briefly, the power and art of extirpating disease from the human 
body by supplying that body with the opposite of disease, which 
is life. Now, it has been demonstrated that all known diseases 
are the result of the excess or absence of one or more of the seven 



236 NEW DISCO V-EKIES. 

principal components of the body, — potassa, manganese, chlorine, 
azote, osmozone, oxygen, and, not as chemists heretofore have 
contended, phosphorus, but an element embracing that principle, 
and which I have named phosogen, — the hypothetical radical of 
hyposphorous acid, chemically speaking, and the base of the dy- 
namic-medical agent, called phosodyn. Now, while the admin- 
istration of any of these in crude form would be useless, it is 
absolutely certain that ethereal, semi-homoaopathic combinations of 
them furnish the most prompt and radical means of cure the world 
has ever seen. Here are the principles ; let them be fairly tried 
by the profession, and failure is impossible. So far in my prac- 
tice I have made but four combinations, — the three most impor- 
tant ones, namely, chlorylle, phosodyn, bromidium, I have found 
to be perfect agents in the treatment of diseases of the nerves, 
and those resulting from extreme or inverted passionalism ; but for 
other diseases other combinations should be exhibited. 

My life has been spent in treating nervous diseases and to 
effectually extirpate the abnormal appetite and craving for to- 
bacco, and alcoholic stimulants, hence I have never made but four 
combinations, and these I found to perfectly meet the requirements 
needed, invariably compounding them of such materials as abound 
in the elements used, and never of the crude substances them- 
selves, — as any mere tyro in chemistry can readily do. Now, 
when the physician or nurse administers a cordial thus com- 
pounded, as soon as it reaches the stomach and comes in contact 
with the gastric surfaces, they are instantly changed into vital 
force in liquid foym ; for oxygen itself, independent of its con- 
tained vitality, is not a simple, but a compound, whose constitu- 
ents are heat, light, and electricity, as I have discovered and 
demonstrated, and that great agent is immediately generated in 
large volume within the body, and in its natural form ; thus the 
blood which takes it up is instantly charged with absolutely new 
life, and the life thus supplied is ramified through every nook and 
corner of the system, and the elements of death, in the shape of 
morbid conditions, and foul and offensive matter are straightway 
dislodged, expelled the system, the worn-out tissues rebuilt, 
the nervous apparatus rendered firm, the wastes made to bloom 
again, grief taken from the mind, sorrow from the heart, morbid- 
ity from the soul, and a new lease of existence taken, simply be- 



THINGS WORTH KNOWING. 237 

cause . the abnormal polarities are changed, and . the chemical 
conditions entirely altered, — for it is an axiom that the condi- 
tions of death cannot coexist with life. 

The human body may be compared to a steam-engine, which so 
long as the fires are kept up goes well ; but if the furnace is fed 
with wet wood, the speed slackens, fires go out, and the machine 
comes to a stand-still. But suppose you put the very best wood 
in the boiler instead of in the furnace ! Why everybody says you 
are a fool, and laughs you to scorn because you tried to drive an 
engine after that absurd fashion. Well that is exactly what 
medical men are doing with the human body, in their attempts to 
correct the evils of perverted or excessive passionalism, and the 
horrid train of nervous aberrations that now afflict the better half 
of civilized society. I am loth to say it, but it is the eternal 
truth nevertheless ! If a person is ill, it is fashionable to assign 
the disturbance to the stomach, and to forthwith begin to cram 
that unfortunate organ with purgatives, and a long catalogue of 
herb teas, and outrageous compounds, which, if cast into the sea 
would poison all the fish, turn leviathan's stomach inside out, and 
line our coasts with rank carcasses, sufficient to kill all who dared 
breathe the pestilent odor ; and yet this is called medical " science !" 
If a woman is sick, give her quassia, say the doctors ; if rheu- 
matic, give cholchicum ; if she is irritable, administer assafoetida, 
bitter almonds, castile soap, croton oil, valerian, and cubebs ; or 
else attempt a cure on strictly homoeopathic principles, — with the 
little end of nothing whittled down to a sharp point ; with boli of 
the quintillionth solution of a grain of mustard seed ! else souse 
her, douse her, stew, steam, bake, broil, grill, roast, boil, freeze, or 
drench her ; else resort to botanizing her with marley, barley, 
parsley, mullein, rose-leaves, lilies, toadstools, catnipj and daffy- 
downdillies ; or pull her to pieces with the " Movement Cure ; " or 
take the prescription of one of the charlatans who, calling them- 
selves professors, are as ignorant of the chemistry of the human 
body, as they are of who built Baalbec, or " The Old Stone Mill." 
Pursue either of these courses and perhaps you will cure the 
patient as fishermen cure shad and salmon — when well dead ! — 
certainly not before that event ! 

A man who has the catarrh : Well, give him plenty of peppery 
snuff, to irritate the seat of his ailment ! Rheumatism, — go 



238 NEW DISCOVERIES. 

and rub him down with cayenne pepper, coal oil, alcohol, pitch, tar, 
and turpentine, giuger, salt, and allspice, — for these are all capital 
things to " cure." 

Look ! yonder is a fair, pale-visaged girl, — said to be dying 
with consumption of the lungs, and being doctored accordingly, — 
when the chances are a hundred to one that the seat and source 
of her disease is in the valves of the arteries, fimbras, pudic nerve, 
uterus, duvernayan glands, or in some of the minute lacunae of the 
pelvic region, producing, of course, nervous exhaustion, followed 
by lung ulcerations and death, in nine cases in every ten. Now 
a month's treatment with the prepared bromides, followed with 
either of the phymyllic remedies would put that girl upon her feet, 
sound and well ; but instead of that she is plied with lime, cod- 
liver oil — pah ! mustard-plaster, onion syrup, iron, soda, morphine, 
and a hundred other unavailing nostrums. 

Wait awhile : " What's the news ? " " She died last night ! " 
And thus it is in the majority of cases of real or apprehended 
tubercular consumption, asthma, dyspepsia, bronchitis, neuralgia, 
female complaints, prolapsus uteri, spinal disease, and all that 
vast host of illnesses that have their origin in disturbed affection, 
unrequited love, uterine diseases and continued grief in women, 
married and single. And yet these are not diseases, but symptoms 
of one great disease, — a chemical disturbance, originating mainty 
in morbid conditions of the nervous apparatus, hence emotional 
systems, of men and women, — causing radical changes in the 
fluids of the body, and thereby loading them with bitter, acid, 
acrid, corroding, biting elements, which malignant elements never 
were, nor can be, driven out by any amount of drenching or mere 
drugging ; for so long as they are there the patient must move 
graveward. Now, when once the fluids are thus charged with these 
angular and corroding atoms, the latter invariably locate them- 
selves in, and fasten upon the weakest spot. If the lungs are 
weak and shallow, look out for consumption, bronchitis, asthma, 
pneumonia or peritonitis ; if other parts be more vulnerable, then 
dyspepsia, epilepsy, nervous weakness, magnetic depletion, fits, 
uterine prolapsus, cancer, scrofula, spinal complaint, are sure to 
follow, and not unfrequently the brain itself is attacked. And no 
drugs can cure them, because they indicate the absence of five 
great elements from the body, and three others in excess. Now, I 



THINGS WORTH KNOWING. 239 

affirm that a judicious combination of the elements already named 
will unquestionably banish all such forms of disease from the 
world forever, and I believe that I shall not have been many years 
in the land of disbodied souls, ere the discoveries I now announce 
will be accepted the wide world over, and that the binary combina- 
tions of these few elements will supersede all other medical agents 
on the globe. In making these disclosures I do not pretend to say 
that I am not desirous of duly reaping a fair profit for the brain 
toil given to perfect my discoveries ; for to do so would be untrue ;. 
but personal gain is by no means the strongest motive that actuates 
me ; for I know these dynamic agents will cure all nervous diseases ; 
I know all nervous diseases spring from disarrangements of the 
sexual system, from various causes, and I believe these diseases 
affect the human soul and spirit on both sides of the eternal gulf, 
and for that reason alone I make these disclosures. True, I am 
grateful when orders come for them, and I gladly shut myself up ' 
in my laboratory to compound and fill them ; but if never a dollar 
came I should still give my knowledge and thank God for the 
opportunity of saving hundreds, and perhaps, by G-od's mercy, 
thousands, of insane, nervous, and exhausted people of both sexes, 

— unfortunate victims of amative extremism and inverted pas- 
sional appetite, — people now robbed, poisoned, and irreparably 
injured by the rampant quackery of the times in which we live, to 
say nothing of the relief that by these means may be given to the 
vast armies now rapidly marching on to irremediable ruin under 
the baleful influence of the three great fiends of modern civilization, 

— alcohol, opium, and tobacco, — all of which I not only believe, 
but absolutely know, to be not merely destructive to physical health, 
but deeply injurious to man's immortal interests after the passage 
over the river of death, — injurious to a degree only less than that 
of solitary pollution, — the crime against God, and beyond all 
doubt the sin against the Holy Ghost ! 

V Teachers innumerable, male and female, have asserted that love 
is in no wise connected to, associated with, or influenced by,, 
amorous desire. So far as my long-continued observations go, 
they are both right and wrong. Eight, when they elevate the 
sentiment of friendship and call it love ; wrong, when they con- 
found the amicive or friendly feeling, with the amative passion. 
Affection is an attribute of the soul, per se, and in one of its 



240 NEW DISCOVERIES. 

moods or phases is altogether independent of magnetic attraction, 
personal appearance, sex, or condition ; and yet it is impossible for 
a really fine soul to fully love a brutal or coarse one ; and when 
such anomalies present themselves, as occasionally they do, the 
passion is unhealthy, abnormal, and must be set down to the score 
of insanity. Intensification of friendship undoubtedly consti- 
tutes one of the supreme blisses of our port-mortem existence ; and 
yet it would be a poor heaven, in my judgment, in which there were 
no reciprocal play of the purely nerval sexual forces of the human 
soul ; for that love, above all other phases of the master-passion, 
is, after all, the attractive chord, chain, motive, substance, or 
principle, which connects the two universal sexes together, and 
of them constitutes the one grand unity, Man. It is entirely dif- 
ferent from that which binds together persons of the same gender. 

I announce another new truth when I affirm, as I do, that love 
is not only liable to, but often is, the subject of disease, and from 
the diseases thus originated spring nine-tenths of all human ail- 
ments. 

Not a tenth part of civilized mankind are free of all effects of 
diseased passion and love, nor can perfect concord reign until all 
are so. The existing state of things can and ought to be remedied. 
If the love of a man be diseased, then there is not sufficient secre- 
ting or generating power to produce the prostatic and seminal 
lymph, or to effect the chemico-magnetic change into nerve aura, 
that fluid fire which suffuses and rushes like a dream-tempest 
through our souls, bodies, and spirits, when in presence of one who 
evokes our love, — love in its very essence, purity, and power. 
If a woman's love-nature be diseased, then her whole better nature 
becomes morbidly changed, and a dreadful catalogue of suffer- 
ings gradually fastens upon her, not the greatest of which are the 
innumerable weaknesses, cancers, nervousness, neuralgias, con- 
sumptions, and aches, which remorselessly drag her down to pre- 
mature death, and whereupon unfeeling quacks wax rich. We* 
cannot have great men till we have healthy mothers ! 

It may not, perhaps, be amiss to briefly show the interrelations 
and mutual interdependence existing between our souls, our spirits, 
and our material bodies ; I will therefore briefly do it. 

Over eight-tenths of the food we take consists of water and 
earthy, carbonaceous matter, most of which the body expels, while 



THINGS WORTH KNOWING. 241 

the fine essences enter the blood, are carried to the heart, and 
after being charged with additional oxygen and vitality in the 
lungs, where they are first forced, and afterwards pumped through 
the body, building it up and renewing every part through which it 
passes while swinging round its circle, — nervous, osseous, muscular, 
cerebral, pelvic, — and thus supplying mental, plrysical, emotional 
and passional energy. Now suppose, as is really the case in eight 
out of ten ailing persons, that the lacteals, the mesenteric glands, 
and absorbents are broken down by over use, tobacco, liquor ; or 
that they are packed and clogged with earthy, chalky matters, or 
slimed up with purulent mucus, — why, then over three-fourths of the 
food taken fails of the end sought ; is expelled with the waste, and 
the blood rushes over its course with either too few nourishing 
elements, or is heavily loaded with pestilential substances, utterly 
hostile to health and vigor, and prolific of a thousand pains and 
penalties. • By aid of a power peculiar to myself in some respects, 
at least, I have been able to demonstrate that the blood is a clear 
lymph, in which floats myriads of round red globules ; and that 
certain chemical conditions of the, system greatly alter or change 
the shape of these globules ; and that wherever they are thus 
changed pain is an absolutely certain resultant. If these globules 
preserve their proper shape and consistence, they glide along 
easily, smoothly, and deposit their treasures in proper places, — 
eye-material to the eyes ; nail, bone, cartilage, nervous, muscle, 
bone salival, prostatic, seminiferous and other materials, all are 
lodged just where they are wanted. But let there be a chemical 
alteration, changing their shape, and the wrong materials are quite 
certain to go just where they are not wanted ; hence irritating parti- 
cles are frequently lodged in the lungs, instead of, perhaps, in the 
bones, where they properly belong. Now these irritant atoms are 
sure to beget ulcerations, which may, and often do, terminate in 
death. If such atoms are lodged in the brain, we have insanity, 
head trouble, etc. If in the nerves, neuralgia follows ; if in the 
artereal valves, the heart sufferers ; if in the prostate, then seminal 
troubles ensue ; and so of all other parts of the grand bodily 
machine. Perhaps, because this theory is new it may prove offen- 
sive to antiquated medical " science ; " but it is none the less true, 
and real for all that ! ■ 

Any one can swallow peas, currants, or even small shot without 
31 



242 NEW DISCOVERIES. 

inconvenience, because they are smooth and round ; but if each 
pea, currant, or shot, should happen to be armed with several stiff, 
sharp points, leaning in all directions, the task were a great deal 
less agreeable. Now, if the blood be loaded down with acid, 
acrid, or other morbid matters, indicating a change of chemical 
condition, as well as of magnetic and electric polarity, the blood 
globules become flattened, bulged, angular, and pointed ; hence 
they clog and impede the general circulation. Lodge these angular 
atoms here, there, and everywhere, and we are forthwith tortured 
with sciatica, gout, rheumatism, acute, stationary, chronic, or flying. 
Flying, why? Because by hot fomentations, rubbing, etc., the 
blood-vessels are warmed. Heat expands; the channels widen, 
disgorgement occurs, and the fluid blood carries the semi-solid 
angular globules somewhere else, and the shoulder agony is ex- 
changed for knee torture, — only that, and nothing more ; for we 
never get rid of rheumatism till the blood globules change their 
form, which they will only do when supplied with the deficient 
elements, or the excessive ones are withdrawn. And so with every 
other form of disease known to man. No patient ever yet died of 
cholera, or yellow fever, to whom chlorine and phosodyn elixir 
was administered before death seized on him ! No one ever yet 
died of consumption who was treated on the principles herein laid 
down. 

It is well, too well, known what slaves mankind are to alcohol, 
opium, and tobacco. Why? Because the globules are retained 
by the blood in a multi-angular shape, and the effort to regain their 
normal form, when the victim tries to burst his bonds, is exceed- 
ingly painful. But suppose these victims take chlorylle a few 
weeks. What then? Why that angularity is gradually and pain- 
lessly removed by a chemico-dynamic operation on the blood, and 
the victim is released from his gyves forever. Not one such effect 
can be produced aside from the principles here set forth. 

It makes not the slightest difference to me who applies these 
principles practically, so long as their application works toward 
human redemption from the thrall of disease. Had I the capital 
to put my discoveries before the world, and my remedies in every 
household, I would be content to die, that man might live ; but I 
am too poor to do it, for all that I have ever saved has up to this 
hour been spent in perfecting what I religiously believe to be the 



THINGS WORTH KNOWING. 243 

purest and best system of medical treatment, and most perfect 
series of medical agents the world ever yet saw ; and this not for 
gain alone, but because I solemnly believe that certain forms of 
disease affect the human soul, and toaste it, and that these effects 
are not soon vastated or gotten rid of even beyond the grave. I 
also know that the system I have wrought out will cure these 
special forms of disease, and of both these things I am as certain 
as that I know my Creator lives and reigns triumphant beyond the 
starry sky that bends above our heads ! In the light of these new 
principles I affirm that potassa will cure the bites of mad clogs, 
rattlesnakes, or any other animal poison, administered at any time 
between the bite and the dreadful moment when, gathering de- 
moniac force, the effects rush forth in such appalling horror as to 
fright the souls of bravest men. Why ? Because the alkali dis- 
solves the virus, expels it from the body, and brings back the 
angular globules to their normal chemical condition, and therefore 
shape. By the application of the same principle, consumption 
and the pale train that accompanies its deadly march is surely 
robbed of all its terrors, and we need no longer be horrified by the 
spectacle of millions of graves of people cut off by that fell pest 
in the midst of life and youth. 

Wilful waste makes woful want ; yet to those who chew and 
smoke their lives away, these principles afford the only known and 
positive refuge ; while that larger class, who, in youth and igno- 
rance, have sapped their own lives, manliness, womanhood, beauty, 
courage, health, and power, — who have sacrificed themselves on 
the altar of a deceptive, ruinous, and pernicious private pleasure, — 
the baleful habit of solitary vice, — in these principles and their 
agencies have probably their sole and only earthly salvation, — 
[and here let me caution parents and guardians to treat these 
erring ones as patients, not as quasi criminals, for the trouble is 
chemical, not psychical, and kindness is better than its opposite, 
in their, as all other cases ; for a kind word, fitly spoken, may 
change the whole career of a human being. When it is remembered 
that it is as easy to speak a kind as any other sort of word, and 
also reflect how in one case it may do worlds of good, or in the 
other worlds of evil, is it not strange that so few of the former and 
so many of the latter are uttered ? It is true that words are only 
air, but air sometimes suffocates and destroys. If rightly com- 



244 NEW DISCOVERIES. 

pounded and good, it gives life and strength ; if otherwise, it en- 
feebles and kills. Think how much you may do with a kind word, 
and then go and utter them, for there are waiting opportunities on 
the right hand and left of you, and this above all, in cases where 
from folly or moral accident erring ones have tampered with their 
own lives and happiness, as I believe, here, and after death has 
transported them beyond the darksome river.] 

The whole and only secret of this, revolutionary theory of 
diseases and their remedies is, briefly : oxygen is heat, light, and 
electricity in unitary form. When it and phosogen are present 
in the body in proper quantity, it acts as a solvent to all morbid 
accumulations, and expels them from the system, while its con- 
tained vif or vital principle builds up and restores. It is the only 
perfect vehicle of the curative principle in existence, and cannot 
be administered through the lungs by any system of inhalation to 
an extent sufficient to do much good, if any at all ; and this dis- 
covery consists in a means whereby a combination of two or more 
of the seven named elements are made to generate vitality upon 
coming in contact with the gastric, Miliary, and pancreatic secre- 
tions, positively, promptly, effectively. 

Beautiful, blessed, life-giving, health-laden oxygen ! It is thy 
triumph I celebrate ! With thee, the physician of the future shall 
be armed at all points, for thou never failest in thy holy and per- 
fect work ! Royal principle ! sweetly sleeping in the virgin's heart, 
and playing on the infant's lip ! Thou givest zest to the story, 
and point to the epigram ; and thou art the spirit of eloquence on 
the orator's tongue ! On the rugged mountain-top thou art breathed 
forth -by myriad giant trees, and in the valley thou sighest from 
the corolla of a flower ! Thou art the destroying breath of the 
typhoon and sirocco ; and thou the sweet perfume exhaled from the 
lily's spotless chalice ! Thou givest strength and fury to the 
flame that wraps vast forests in sheets of living fire ; and thou 
layest waste great cities, leaving them shrivelled and seared behind 
thee, as thou marchest forward in thy wrath ! And yet thou art 
gentle as a mother's love, — lovely as the blushing dawn, — true 
friend of man, when he understandeth thy moods and law ; but a 
bitter teacher of those who know thee not ! — Thou tender nurse, 
faithful friend, and chief of all plrysicians, — 

" They reckon ill who leave thee out I " 



THINGS WORTH KNOWING. 245 

— thou servant of Heaven ! beautifier of earth ! maker of happy 
homes ! healer of all human ills ! comforter of our souls ! dispenser 
of life ! foe of death ! banisher of pain ! — ever blessed, lovely, 
beautiful, holy, and God-Sent Principle of Life ! 



PART II. B. 

The proper study of mankind is Woman ! and precious few are 
they who really know anything about her, although millions of 
those who wear pantaloons and sport whiskers, imagine that of all 
other studies of this mundane life of ours, they have mastered 
that; but a greater mistake was never made since creation began, 
and the morning stars sang together for joy. If it be true that 
of all enigmas and mysteries on this earth, man is the greatest 
and most profound, then certainly the most difficult part of that 
mighty riddle is the wonderful being called Woman. Wonderful 
in many ways and senses, as I shall most abundantly demonstrate 
before the conclusion of this brief article. 

There is an old Talmudic legend concerning the advent of 
woman on this earth, which goes far toward showing that in many 
things she was understood better some thousands of years before 
the Christian era, than she is to-day, even among the most highly 
cultivated and polished circles of modern civilized society, in the 
loftiest centres of learning and refinement. The legend tells us 
that when the idea struck the Elohim that they would people this 
earth with beings only a little inferior to themselves, they were so 
pleased with it that they forthwith set themselves to work to 
gather the very finest and most perfect particles of dust they 
could find in ten thousand years ; which dust their chief straight- 
way formed into a man, and in doing so, used up all the material. 
After enjoying the sight of the new-made being awhile, they put 
him in a very pleasant garden ; but the lonely one was very mis- 
erable and unhapp}^, and at last made such a hideous noise with his 
grumbles and growlings, that, to save their lives, the Elohim could 
not get a wink of sleep. He kept it up, however, night and day, 



246 NEW DISCOVERIES. 

till his hair frizzled all over his head, and he grew quite black in the 
face. That was the Talmudic origin of the black race. But one 
day he chanced to go near some still water and saw his own image 
reflected therein, which sight so frightened him that he stopped 
groaning. Now the sudden cessation of the noise caused one of the 
Elohim to look out of his window in the sky, to see what on 
earth could be the matter, and, observing the man, he went down 
and asked him what was up. Says the man, " I'm tired of this 
garden, — it's altogether too lonesome." "Well, J haven't any- 
thing to do about that. Who are you, anyhow? I never saw 
you before, — that's certain!" Said the man : " I wonder, now, 
why you made me, and put me here? " " I made you? Why you 
black wretch, I never saw you till this moment," and with that he 
slapped his face, flattened his nose, spread his feet, and he 
has remained so ever since. That first experiment was a failure. 
Afte,r the Elohim had discovered his mistake, the council deter- 
mined to try again, and this time made a fine-looking fellow, and 
put him into garden number two. But he grumbled also, till he 
grew red in the face, scaled the walls, and went for the woods. 
Failure number two. Again they made another man ; but he knew 
at once what he wanted, and so kept continually crying " Woh- 
zoel woh-zoe!" which in the Edenic language signifies, " Woman, 
woman ! " " Sure enough," said Elohim, " he very naturally 
wants a wife ! " But where to get one was the difficulty ; seeing 
that it took thirty thousand years to collect materials to make 
three coarse men, it would take ten times as long to find the 
wherewith to make one fine woman. At last one of them sug- 
gested making her out of a part of man, and acting thereupon, 
they straightway put the three men asleep, took a rib from each, 
and thereof made three females, or woh-zoes — which means 
woman — seeing that she was taken out of man. Now when the 
three men woke up, they were surprised and delighted exceed- 
ingly. The black man took his Dinah to Africa, and stayed there ; 
the red. man took his squaw to America ; the white man was so 
delighted with his sweetheart that he began to whistle " Over the 
hills and far away," with variations on "Yankee Doodle," and 
"Push along, keep moving," and he has kept moving from that 
day to this, evincing his superiority to the other two by demon- 
strating practically that though a rolling stone gathers no moss, 



THINGS WORTH KNOWING. 247 

yet a travelling man gains knowledge. In proof of which the 
white man to-day is master of the world, and says, does, and 
knows just twice as much .as both the others combined. The 
white woman is chief of all women, as the white man is unques- 
tioned king of all who wear the human form ; and yet, wise and 
knowing as he undoubtedly is, he has yet to learn a thing or two 
about women. 

Among other errors concerning her, now prevalent, is the 
absurd idea that, sex excepted, she is precisely what man is, in 
all respects whatever. While the truth of the case is, that in all re- 
spects she is his opposite and counterpart, mentally, socially, phys- 
ically, esthetically, physiologically, anatomically, magnetically, 
electrically, chemically, and mechanically ; and to regard her as 
being but a softer, finer, more delicate sort of man, or male, is not 
only a grave mistake, but one that does her rank injustice. And 
yet how many thousands of men fall headlong into it, and during 
the whole course of their lives are stone blind to some of the most 
beautiful facts of existence. For instance : woman everywhere, 
and under all circumstances, is cleaner than man. Soap and 
water, fresh linen and free air, will always purify her, no matter 
what her previous state may have been. Not so with man. Let 
the cleanest man living wash in forty clear, pure, fresh tubs of 
water, one after another, and the last water will be dark and 
cloudy ! But let a woman do so, and the thirty-five last tubs of 
water will be as pure and clear and free from clouds as the forty- 
first one just drawn from the running brook or bubbling spring 
upon the hill-side. Again : there is said ever to be a dirty corner 
in the mind of every man that treads, or has ever trodden, the earth. 
This is never true of woman ! and doubtless never will be. 

That she is magnetically different from man is proved by the 
superior results of the care and nursing of both sexes by woman 
and man. In the case of man he merely allays physical anguish, 
while woman does that, better still, and at the same time soothes 
the spirit and leads back, with silken cords, the rebellious soul to 
virtue, truth, and God ! Anatomically she differs, being wide in 
the pelvis, where man is narrow, and narrow in the shoulders, 
where man is wide. She eats the same food man does, and drinks 
the same general fluids, but she makes a far different use of them ; 
for while man converts them into muscular force, woman changes 



248 NEW DISCOVERIES. 

them into nervous power ; milk, — during lactation ; and into love 
and affection, besides various forces that are unknown to the 
sterner sex. Physically, she is immeasurably inferior in strength ; 
but in endurance, fortitude, courage to undergo, and victoriously 
to endure pain, she rises as far above the best man living, as the 
midsummer sun transcends a tallow candle ! And if any man 
were called upon to suffer one-half the physical anguish that every 
female has to encounter, the graveyards would overflow with their 
dead bodies within a single year ! While if men had to suffer 
mentally half that women do every month of their lives, the in- 
sane retreats and mad-houses would be crammed to suffocation. 
Let no one henceforth speak sneeringly of Woman as being " the 
weaker vessel." 

This point will be clearer when it is understood that a woman's 
nerves are not only far more in number than man's, but they are 
infinitely finer, more subtle, sensitive, and acute ; hence she is 
liable to a variety of diseases of a purely nervous character, 
peculiar to her sex alone ; for instance, variously seated neural- 
gia, — one of the most excruciating tortures the human frame is 
capable of enduring; while, when we speak of the pangs of mater- 
nity, ulcerations, prolapsus, ovarian tumors, swelled breast, pro- 
fuse, painful, suppressed or abnormal periods, — we speak of 
things whereof man can have no experience whatever, and there- 
fore no adequate idea. Even learned professors know very little 
of woman, and not one in a thousand has a clear understanding 
of her nature, — a being so delicate, so full of mystery, and in 
whom the nervous life is all in all. Disappoint a man in love, and 
he straightway recovers from the shock. Disappoint a woman, 
and forthwith she languishes, falls into consumption, and dies. 
It is a very grievous sin to do such a thing. She needs — always 
needs — the love and support of a protecting arm, — not false 
love, but true. When she has this, sick or well, she is a tower of 
grandeur, and you cannot deceive her. Without it, she becomes 
warped and soured, and the prey of a hundred forms of disease ; 
and to cure which, people pill, purge, leech, blister, and narcotize 
her. What nonsense ! Blue pill for a breaking heart ! Catnip 
tea for disappointed love ! Blister plasters for a jealous fit ! A 
new bonnet to pay for nights of absence and days of cruelty, 
neglect, and abuse ! 



THINGS WORTH KNOWING. 249 

To successfully treat the diseases of woman, requires a vast deal 
more of science, art, culture, patience, experience, and ability, 
than it does to treat those of the opposite sex, for the reason that 
her organism is infinitely more complex, and her mission and 
function broader and deeper than man's. "Not so," says a 
caviller. " Pray, what has woman clone in the world? Has not 
man built civilization, erected cities, states, and mighty king- 
doms? made ships, mills, railways? has he not done all this?" 
I answer, "Most certainly he has; but look you, sir: Woman 
makes the man who in turn does these mighty things ! " 

The great physical difference between the sexes consists in the 
uterine system of organs and its tremendous offices, — that of 
building human bodies and incarnating human souls, — and the 
mammary glands, or breasts, whereby the young soul is nurtured 
into life and strength. Now, if by any cause whatever, the life 
or happiness of the woman be disturbed, there is straightway a re- 
action upon the breasts, heart, lungs, and the entire uterine system, 
involving the dreadful chances of cancer, heart disease, consump- 
tion, dyspepsia, and prolapsus, to say nothing of the hundred 
other specific forms of female diseases, often resulting in life-long 
misery, mental agony, and early death, — and all from a variety 
of causes to which no man can possibly be exposed. Hence I 
again repeat, and without fear of successful contradiction, that at 
least ten times the skill is required in treating her diseases than 
in those of men alone. 

If a man receives a blow upon the breast, he speedily recovers ; 
not so with woman ; for it may so injure her as to cause tumors, 
ulcers, or cancer ; and if not, then the milk glands may be ruined 
for life ; and on her ability to do justice to her child, both before 
and after birth, depends the inferiority or superiority of the race 
of men who are to rule the world hereafter. 'It is a sad truth that 
I utter when I say that nine-tenths of the women of this country 
labor under some form of disease peculiar to them alone. The}'" 
are most common and distressing, by reason of their annoyance 
and exhausting effects ; the constant irritation, and the extreme 
difficulty experienced in getting rid of them when once firmly 
settled upon the system of the sufferers. They are common to 
both married and unmarried women, but far more so among the 
former than the latter class, owing to a variety of causes. One most 
32 



250 NEW DISCOVEKIES. 

distressing and depressing trouble is prolapsus of the uterus, with 
which most American ladies are more or less afflicted ; and to he 
relieved of which, they often resort to very questionable means, 
among which are the forty thousand illiterate, money-catching 
quacks, — with their catholicons, balsams, pessaries, belts, and 
Heaven only knows how many more detestable, cruel, poisonous, 
inefficient, yet always unavailing and positively injurious con- 
trivances. More than nine-tenths of woman's illnesses is the re- 
sult of vital and nervous exhaustion. It comes of too hard 
physical labor, lifting, too frequent child-bearing, and, what is 
worse yet, and the principal cause of four-fifths of it, from con- 
tinual domestic inquietude and fretting. 

This last cause alone is productive of far more illness than would 
readily be believed, did not general observation and experience 
demonstrate it beyond all cavil. In the first place passion's true 
object, so far as nature is concerned, is offspring, and whenever, 
wherever, and by whomsoever it is habitually and unwisely per- 
verted to other and mere animal, not pure affectional uses, it is a 
desecration of woman's holy nature, and an outrage on the exquis- 
ite sanctities of her being ! 

Unwelcome "love" is no love at all. To force nature is a 
crime against God. The strain is too heavy on the nervous 
system, to say nothing about deeper parts of human nature. That's 
the way that some, and a good many wives are poisoned. That 
is the reason wiry so many of them mysteriously waste away, 
sicken, grow pale, thin, waxen, and finally quit the earth, and send 
their forms to early graves, — like blasted fruit, falling before 
half ripened. It is a terrible picture, but a true one. 

If poison — prussic acid or strychnine, for instance — be admin- 
istered to a woman, she dies from its effects. But why? Because 
it enters the seat of life, changes the nature of her blood and death 
follows. Well she may be poisoned quite as effectively in other 
ways ; for she may be exhausted and die for want of nervous 
energy ; or she may have morbid secretions, the poison of which 
is sure to enter the blood, until the blood is so heavily charged 
therewith that the disease assumes another form, while retaining 
the old one, and before she is aware of it, the foul-fiend Consump- 
tion, has laid siege to her lungs, or Scrofula in some of its myriad 
forms, — from cancer to salt rheum, — saps the foundation of her 



THINGS WORTH KNOWING. 251 

health forever. And yet a certain class of physicians tell us that 
her ailments can be cured with drugs, herb teas, bathing, magnetic 
treatment, electric shocks, or any one of ten thousand methods, — 
all and singular of which, are as worthless and useless as a last 
year's almanac, for you might as well expect an oyster to climb a 
tree, or to see a whale dance the polka, as to expect utter impos- 
sibilities in the direction indicated ; for never, since the world 
began, did any such treatment cure a woman of the troubles referred 
to ; nor is it possible unless the active and producing cause be 
first understood, then attacked, and finally removed. And they 
cannot be so removed unless she be purified and strengthened. 
Will herb teas do this important work? Will all the drugs ever 
imported — to kill patients and make doctors rich — do it ? will 
washing, sousing, dousing, scalding, accomplish the desired work ? 
Will any amount of magnetizing, electrifying, or pulling, hauling, 
blistering, bleeding, purging, plastering, or manipulation, solve 
the great problem and banish these diseases? I answer most 
emphatically, no ! Why ? Because all these methods proceed 
upon the plan of relieving symptoms, not fighting the real disease ; 
and just as long as such plans are adhered to, just so long will the 
agonizing groans of millions of suffering women ascend to Heaven, 
craving the help from thence that is denied them here. 

To cure the outer, physical, and most of the mental and emo- 
tional ills of women, nature herself must be taken as both copy 
and guide. Indian women, negresses, and, in fact, none of the 
dark-skinned women of the world, are ever troubled with the griev- 
ous catalogue of disorders and complaints that afflict so many 
millions of the fair daughters and mothers of our otherwise favored 
country. And why is this ? The answer is plain. In the first place 
they are born right, and of perfectly healthy mothers, whatever may 
be said of them on the score of morals, beauty, and intelligence, — 
they being confessedly as far inferior to American women in these 
three respects, as themselves are undoubtedly inferior to their dark- 
skinned sisters in point of health and physical stamina. This is 
proved by their utter freedom from all diseases of the pelvis and 
nerves, and by their exceeding brief, and almost painless illness 
in confinement ; nor is this fact accounted for on the theory that 
were their children as large-brained as American babes, their suf- 
ferings would equal those of our wives and mothers, — for there 



252 NEW DISCOVERIES. 

are large-brained oriental people, — bat the results in no wise 
differ from the rule laid down. 

Now, why this immunity from disease? I reply: because, first, 
they live right ; they are not pampered with health-destroying 
hot teas, coffees, pork-fat, sweets, quack doctors, or any other 
abomination. Second, they have plenty of out-door exercise ; con- 
sequently their lungs are well inflated and their blood oxygenized. 
And, third, they are not worn out by exactions which kill half the 
white wives before their lives are more than half spent ! 

The domestic habits of American women are by no means calcu- 
lated to promote health or prolong life. An excess of fat food, 
doughnuts, rich indigestible pastry, hot drinks, hot air, feather 
beds, close rooms, lack of amusement, warm bread, and com- 
pressed chests, are, each and all, making sad marks upon American 
women. But this is not the worst feature of the case, by any 
means, in two respects. 1st. Whatever other just things our 
country may boast — whatever pride it may fairly have in its 
institutions — it is a deplorable fact that marriage in our land, as a 
general thing, is anything but a " bed of roses," as is demon- 
strated in a thousand ways daily, in every section of the land. 
Disgust, discontent, hidden grief, and a hundred real and imagi- 
nary evils and wrongs, are constantly paling the cheeks and dimming 
the eyes of scores of thousands of wives in this our fair and vast 
domain. It is certain that scores of thousands of wives perish 
yearly, — victims of thoughtlessness on the part of others and 
themselves too. They have failed to fortify themselves, — their 
nerves and constitutions, against the excessive drainage to which 
too many of them are exposed. A very little knowledge, of the 
right sort, would enable them to successfully do this, and no one 
the wiser for, or the loser by, it. Never shall I forget the terrible 
impression made upon me by the account of a young wife's dying 
bed, told me by Mrs. Reed, of Boston, — a fair young creature, — 
a gazelle, — mated with a brutal elephant, — a thing shaped like a 
-man, but who had no more real manhood than a wild buffalo. 
Now, had that murdered wife — a victim to Christian marriage — 
been wise, as she might have been, she could have preserved her 
life and health in spite of the thing that called himself her husband. 

2d. "Women, when afflicted, frequently become the victims of 
charlatanry and medical mal-practice to an alarming extent, and it 



t 



THINGS WORTH KNOWING. 25 i 



is an open question whether the outrageous exposures, operations, 
indelicate manipulations, heroic drugging, and unmanly, unscien- 
tific, and inhuman treatment generally, to which they are subject, 
is not more fatal and injurious, in the result, than the original dis- 
ease sought to be remedied ! I hold the man, physician or not, 
who unnecessarily violates the holy sanctities of woman, and rudely 
assails her delicacy, as being no man at all ; and here let me say, 
is to be found one of the prolific causes of the general unhappiness 
of woman in wedded life. Husbands forget three things of vas 
importance to the happiness of wedlock : That love can only be 
maintained by Tenderness, Consideration, and Respect ; and that 
he comes too near, who comes to be denied ; and that it is not and 
never was or will be true, that a man may do what he likes with 
his own ! 

But where unhealth exists from domestic causes, the woman has 
a sure relief, and it mainly consists in expanding the lungs, brac- 
ing and invigorating the nervous system ; the means adapted 
specially to which end, I have already indicated, in ox3^genization. 
But, the question rises : " What is this oxygenization of which 
you speak ? and by what method is it done ? and how does it act 
to produce results so desirable to nearly every female in the land ? " 
These are very just and pertinent questions, demanding clear and 
explicit answers. In the first place, then, it is impossible for a 
woman to be ill, in the direction here alluded to, if her lungs be 
large and sound, her blood pure, and her waist uncramped by the 
tja'anny of fashion. But if her lungs be squeezed into the shape 
of a blue-bottle fly, or an hour-glass, it is impossible that they can 
be filled with fresh air, or any air at all ; and if they are not so 
filled at every breath she draws, the blood that rushes to the lungs 
from the heart cannot receive the due share of air to which they 
are entitled, and for which they were created. Now, if such is the 
case, it follows that by degrees the blood becomes foul, because it 
cannot rid itself of the impure and noxious substances gathered 
from all parts of the bod}', and of which it would speedily dis- 
charge itself, if the heart and the lungs were permitted to do their 
full duty. 

I have already demonstrated that the body of woman is infinitely 
finer, more delicate and susceptible to all sorts of impressions and 
influences, than is that of man ; and, by reason of her sex and its 



iai 



254 NEW DISCOVERIES. 

responsibilities, she is doubly liable to what man never can be, — 
disarrangement of peculiar organs. 

I need not say — for every one knows perfectly well — that the 
uterus (and its appendages) is the most wonderfully delicate and 
sensitive mechanism ever constructed by the hand of the living 
God ; for in it, by it, and through it, the purpose is accomplished 
and completed, for which the Eternal Being has ceaselessly 
labored during countless millions of rolling centuries ! It is the 

cred recess wherein nature's loftiest and finest work is done ! 
t is the sealed and thrice-holy laboratory, wherein G-od manufac- 
tures the most surprising machines. He builds the most exquisite 
furnaces therein, — witness the lungs ! The most magnificent chemi- 
cal works ; witness the stomach of a babe, — a machine that 
converts gross food into eternal and infinite thought, and im- 
perishable mind ! The most wonderful dyeing works in existence, 
for what can equal the marble purity of an infant's skin? or the 
carnation of a maiden's cheek ? or the blushing coral of her lips ? 
Behold the fourteen miles of blood-vessels, and the five hundred 
miles of nervous filament, every one of which is an electric tele- 
graph a million times more perfect than that of Morse ! Behold 
the skin that covers the human form, with its forty-five millions of 
pores, through which is hourly sifted noxious substances too fine 
to be seen by the human eye ! The human eye itself ! What 
microscope can rival it ? What telescope compare in elaborateness 
and use ? The ear ! What a wonderful instrument ! Behold the 
mystery of the hand and arm ! Look at the astonishing perfect- 
ness of the wheels, levers, hinges, doors, cells, wells, pumps, and 
pillars of the human structure, and you are lost in amazement at 
its extraordinary and marvellous workmanship ! Yet it is all 
fashioned and completed in the uterus of woman ! Nor is this all. 
When we look at the human body, with all its wdndrous workman- 
ship, we realize the stupendous truth that it was created especially 
as the temporary residence of the eternally enduring human soul. 
And that soul itself, with all its transcendent powers for good and 
evil, is fashioned, biased, built up and modelled for all eternity, 
within its holy walls, from whence it is launched upon the waves 
of eternal ages ; and its destiny here and hereafter unquestionably 
is determined before it sees the light, by the happy or unhappy, 
sick or well, condition of the mother whose work it chances 



THINGS WORTH KNOWING. 255 

to be ! In Heaven's name, then, how can we expect wives to 
bring forth children but a little inferior to angels in perfection, 
while the mothers are in some respects treated inconsiderately, 
rudely, and ignorantly, like unto the beasts that perish? Now 
observe : whatever sensation, emotion, pleasure, or pain the woman 
has, be it mental or plrysical, immediately acts upon the uterus, 
and its appendages, causing either pleasurable, healthful feelings 
to pervade her entire being, or inducing pain. But if, from 
cramped or diseased lungs, the blood be impure and charged with 
noxious substances, there is sure to be trouble, either in the 
uterine, digestive, or nervous sj 7 stem, but mainly in the former, and 
manifested by weakness in the back and loins, nervous irritability, 
sickness, nausea, side-pains, headaches, and impure catamenia, — 
not infrequently ultimating in ulcers, cancer, or confirmed consump- 
tion. Frequently the uterine ligaments become weak, relaxed, 
flimsy, and suffer the uterus to fall forward, backward, descend, or 
become partially turned inside out ; and if it becomes bruised 
while thus hanging down, as it very often is, cancer may follow, 
or a chronic induration supervene, — in either case causing the 
most intolerable anguish, or a lingering, painful, wasting illness, 
to which death itself is very often preferable. For this state of 
things I have never found any medicinal agents at all comparable 
to those discovered by myself ; especially that known as Phosodyn, 
— an element closely approximating the principle of vitality itself, 
because it is speedily absorbed by the blood, is carried to the 
lungs, — which it heals if ailing, — and from there, having gained 
additional oxygen from the air, back to the heart, which, with 
renewed energy, sends it whirling, flying, searching, into and 
through every vein, artery, cell, muscle, organ, and crevice of the 
entire body, leaving not a single spot un visited, unsearchecl, unex- 
plored by the life-charged blood, — I say life-charged, for this 
subtle agent most assuredly is very near akin to life itself, and 
while as perfectly harmless as the air we breathe, is, like that very 
air, the accredited vehicle of muscular, digestive, cerebral, and 
nervous energy ; for wherever it goes it carries life, vigor, health, 
and strength. The lungs, be they never so badly diseased, im- 
mediately begin to heal. Sleepless nights are exchanged for hours 
of sweet slumber and calm repose. Exhausted nerves gain new 
thrills of gleeful, joyous life, activity, and vigor. The dyspeptic 



256 NEW DISCOVERIES. 

stomach regains its healthful tone, the liver is forthwith cleansed 
and purified, the kidneys begin to thoroughly do their proper work, 
and the excess of uric acid, urea, chalk, carbonate of lime, pus, 
slime, and poison is strained from the blood, as they ought to be, 
and are, through the bladder, effectually cast forth from the body. 
The brain is relieved from pressure, and its functions are again 
effectively carried on. The ligaments of the uterus contract, and, 
as they do so, the organ is drawn up and back to its proper place. 
The acrid secretions are effectually cut off; the scrofulous humors 
that have tainted the blood are completely and thoroughly nulli- 
fied, rendered harmless, and evacuated from the system ; and the 
patient's groans and heart-rending sighs are heard no more ; for 
they are changed to notes of joy and gladness, hope and rest, by 
this most thorough of all known remedies. 

The value of this discovery, in the treatment of female diseases 
alone, cannot be computed, by millions even ; for just as it would 
be impossible to weigh out or measure the full amount of pain 
and agony endured in a single year by the women of this country, 
even so it would be impossible to estimate the amount of good 
possible to be accomplished by its means. All other attempts — 
for they are and were attempts only — that have hitherto been 
made to cure nervous diseases, especially those of women, have 
been either the hap-hazard essayals of ignorance, the results of 
errant quackery and empiricism, or the lamentable experiments of 
physicians who went on the theory that one class of agents alone 
would cure them, and what might be given to a man would also do for 
a woman ; when, in fact, the chemical difference between the two 
sexes ought to have taught them a far different doctrine. Give a 
good chemist a bloody handkerchief taken from a cut hand, and he 
will tell you whether it is that of a man or woman ; hence the 
idea of treating both sexes alike for disease is absurd ; but not 
quite so illogical as the attempts daily made to relieve women of 
their own peculiar ailments by flooding the stomach with all sorts 
of so-called " medical" agents, but which are mainly ineffective, 
if not poisonous. Most medicines' merely excite the stomach to 
renewed activity in the effort to dislodge and get rid of what is 
poured into it. They act upon the mucous membrane and excite 
the glands to increased action, and the engendered slime invests 
or dissolves the drugs, and they are carried from the body ; but in 



THINGS WORTH KNOWING. 257 

nearly all cases leave that body in a far worse condition than ever. 
Thus by mal-treatment five sixths of all the women of our country 
are invalids in reality, and, were it not for the wonderful en- 
durance of American women, over all others, by reason of their 
larger and finer brain, and nervous systems, a very large per- 
centage of them would die before they do. 



PART II. C. 



" I cannot remember a night so dark as to have hindered the 
coming day ; nor a storm so furious or dreadful as to prevent the 
return of warm sunshine and a cloudless sky ! " 

Not every one who proclaims himself your friend will stand by 
you when friendship is most needed. 

Listen well to all advice, — and follow your own ! 

It is bad policy to give your last coat away ; and worse to be- 
lieve what all men say they mean. 

It is poor wisdom to sell your friend for present gain. 

Husbands were not made to be destroyed for a wife or mother- 
in-law's whims ; nor were wives made to be neglected for a wan- 
ton's smiles. An ounce of love is worth a ton of passion ; and it 
won't do to always speak your mind or give your suspicions to 
the winds. Stop and think ! Consider, soul, consider ! A hus- 
band is worth more than a key or a portrait ! Don't you think so ? 

All modern theories of diseases are wrong ; they are not in 
the blood, but are the results of wrong, excessive, scant, or 
morbid magnetism ; hence are to be thoroughly cured only by 
magnetic means, either directly, by the touch, or by magnetic 
medical agents, of which there are but few in existence, and 
none equal to those discovered b} r myself. 

Never yet was an injury so deep that time could not assuage it ; 
nor an angry man that did not injure himself more than he did the 
object of his wrath ; nor an enemy so bitter but that Right and 
Justice in his heart did not eloquently appeal for his opponent ; 
nor was there ever a trouble but that, somehow, a woman was at 
33 



258 NEW DISCO VEEIES. 

the bottom of it ; nor a joy that she did not create ; nor a hatred 
equal to hers ; nor a friendship half so true as woman's. She is a 
creature very weak, yet capable of twisting^ the strongest man 
that ever lived around her little finger ; little, but great, and who 
can reduce the sternest man's resolutions into the consistency of 
soft-soap before he can say " Jack Robinson." 

I have never failed to observe that those who loudest denounced 
the amative passion as " animal," " unholy," " impure," and the 
like, were its veriest slaves. 

Never sell your bed or fool it away. It is bad policy. . . I never 
knew either doctors or philosophers to speak well of each other ; 
a " strong-minded" woman who was not a termagant at home ; or 
a moral reformer that had not a leak in his character or a soft 
spot in his head. 

A husband — a true one — is worth ten thousand " friends," and 
a true wife worth a myriad wantons. 

I have never known a family difficulty that did not originate in 
passional satiety, or disturbance of the magnetic equilibrium be- 
tween couples, and consequent^ none that were incurable. Man 
is a whimsical creature, — a curious mixture of good and evil ; 
woman a bundle of strange contradictions. Both are God's mas- 
ter-work ; and if each stopped to think a little before a given 
action, there would be less domestic trouble in the world. 

I know that men and women fail and die through feebleness of 
will ; that love lieth at the foundation ; that silence is strength ; 
and that goodness alone is power ; hence that though all the world 
array itself against a man, yet, if he be right, God and himself are 
a majority ; and, lastly, I know that a great deal of life's miseries 
spring from unrequited love, — the unappeased longing and yearn- 
ing for the great human right, — that is, the right to be loved for 
ourselves alone, not merely for the accidents that environ us. But 
I have more to say on this subject, and shall soon utter it in my 
volume entitled " Love and its Hidden History." 



Since March 25th, 1868, I have made arrangements whereby in 
future I shall have the use of a far better laboratory than my own ; 
hence shall be able to produce my improved remedies for all ner- 
vous diseases, not only of superior quality, but can now make them 



THINGS WORTH KNOWING. 259 

fresh and perfect for each case, — an advantage readily appreci- 
able. In no case will I again make the old forms of phymylle or 
amylle, as my new combinations are immensely superior to either 
of them ; hence hereafter the public will understand that all arti- 
cles bearing those names, and not having my seal upon them, when 
sold by parties other than myself, are counterfeits. 

I shall keep none of my remedies on hand; but when patients 
consult me and describe their cases, I will prescribe for and pre- 
pare either or all of my remedies, and forward the same by desig- 
nated express, at the uniform rate of five dollars per large flask of 
either of the remedies, eight dollars for a large flask of two, and 
twelve dollars for a full course of three remedies, — being but a 
slight advance on the cost of preparation, — I depending on their 
extensive sale, rather than on large gains upon small quantities. 
The preparations will be furnished absolutely pure, for they are 
made in the best laboratory in the United States, with the assist- 
ance of two of the best chemists the world now possesses. 

The remedies are designated as Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4, and are sent 
separate or in courses, as required. It is always best for patients 
or their friends to describe the symptoms of the case ; how long 
ailing, sex, age, and temperament ; the supposed origin of the ail- 
ment, and state of the digestive organs. On the data thus fur- 
nished, a clear judgment can be formed, and the appropriate reme- 
dies be prescribed. A cure will be effected in almost every case, 
if the directions given are strictly and punctually followed. 

Let it be clearly and distinctly understood that these remedies 
are in no sense " patent medicines," made only to sell ; but they 
are fine elements, the grand triumph of chemical skill and re- 
search, and the perfected results of twenty-five weary years of 
labor and study. 

Nos. 1 and 3 taken as directed, will clear the body of all sorts 
of poisonous humor or virus that may be lurking in the system. 
They enter the blood, vitalize it, and give magnetic nervous force, 
while most effectually removing all acid, acrid, slimy particles, 
and hence promptly curing rheumatism, scrofula, neuralgia, and, 
above all, speedily correcting the morbid secretions incident only 
to womanhood, hence quickly relieving headache, heart disturb- 
ance, bearing down, and all that class of lingering complaints. 

Nos. 2, 3, and 4 constitute a positive and absolute specific for 



260 NEW DISCOVERIES. 

that sad catalogue of ills resulting from youthful inversionism, or 
solitary error in either sex. I prefer to say no more on that pain- 
ful subject, further than to remark that these agents unmistakably 
cure them. I have in my possession hundreds of letters from the 
victims of both the errors alluded to, and of the conscienceless 
scoundrel quacks who pretend to be able to cure them and cannot, 

— harpies, whose obscene advertisements are the standing dis- 
grace of the American press. 

No. 1 alone — but better still if taken with one of the others 

— will cure incipient consumption, passional apathy, and derange- 
ment, nervous exhaustion, vital prostration, loss of magnetic 
power and vivacity, skin diseases, and insanity, resulting from 
over-work or inconsiderate waste. For woman's nervous states 
nothing on earth equals this blessed agent. 

Nos. 2 and 3 are the proper remedies for all complaints affect- 
ing the bladder and urinary organs of either sex. 

No. 4 is an effective corrector of the baneful habits of opium- 
eating, tobacco-using, and the use of alcoholic liquors. I discov- 
ered this accidentally, for I had prescribed this agent for many 
persons laboring under nervous diseases^ and who were also vic- 
tims of the habits named. They were cured ; and with the dis- 
appearance of their disease also went, effectually, the morbid 
appetites, which no doubt had, in a measure, Originally caused 
their complaints. Since then I have treated many cases espec- 
ially, and a success beyond all my hopes or expectations followed. 

This remedy — as all the others — operates on a newly discovered 
principle, — that of altering and correcting the magnetic polarities 
and shape of the blood-globules, cooling the inflamed surfaces, 
dislodging the irritant and poisonous particles from blood, nerve, 
muscle, brain, and leaving them as nature intended, — free from 
all morbid craving. I believe it is the only agent in the world 
that will or can accomplish these results. 

I have no agents or confidants ; am the only maker of the Four 
Nervous Remedies in the world; therefore hereafter the public 
will deal with me alone, both as regards my Specialities and my 
Publications, especially my manual of instructions for those who 
seek to become Clairvoyants (price $1.00). 

Address Dr. P. B. RANDOLPH, 

Boston, Mass. 

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